by Joe Vasicek
“Oh, she’s alive, all right. Ordered us to stay here and cover for her. She went down to the officer’s deck just below us.”
Gunfire sounded just around the nearest corner, so close that all three of them ducked. The shots were followed by screams and the wuft-wuft of plasma fire—Outworlder or Imperial, it was impossible to tell. Aaron made a split-second decision and dashed for the nearest stairwell.
“Hey!” Lino shouted. “Where you are going?”
But by then, Aaron was already halfway down to the next deck. His feet flew over the narrow stairs, taking them two at a time. His lungs burned almost as much from running as from the smoke. He slammed against the wall and pushed off to round the corner, stopping only briefly to peer around the edge before stepping through.
* * * * *
The officer’s deck was eerily quiet, and almost completely devoid of bodies. Only a couple of bullet holes graced the walls, though further down, Aaron could clearly hear the sound of gunfire. He gripped his rifle with sweaty hands and half-ran, half-walked through the nondescript corridor. Even so, the gunfire seemed to be getting further away, not nearer to him.
In that moment, he felt as if he were wandering through a dream—not quite a nightmare, though certainly there was enough horror to make it one. But at the same time, he felt more alive and invigorated than he could ever remember. It was as if his whole life up to this point had been cast in shades of gray, and now he was seeing everything in vivid color. He didn’t know what to make of it. In some ways, it didn’t feel real, but in others, it seemed more real than anything that had ever happened to him.
He turned the corner and saw Mara walking purposefully with an SMG slung over her shoulder and a grenade in her hand.
“Mara!”
She ignored him and palmed the nearest door. As it slid open, she stepped aside and tossed her grenade through the doorway in one smooth, catlike motion. It exploded with a pop and a brilliant flash, making Aaron stagger back and cover his eyes. Inside the room, someone screamed.
When he looked up again, he saw Mara standing in the doorway, pointing her SMG with one hand like a pistol. She fired several quick bursts at a group of unseen targets. Silence returned to the deck—a cold, deathly silence that sent a chill down Aaron’s back. Mara regarded her handiwork coolly, then fired another shot for good measure.
“That’s for my father, you son of a bitch.”
“Mara! Mara, what are you doing?”
She turned and looked at him—or rather, stared right through him while barely acknowledging his presence. She didn’t look like herself anymore—in fact, she barely looked human. Her eyes had an almost feral look, and her lips were curled back in a sneer.
“Aaron,” she said, nodding to him. She didn’t say anything else.
“What are you doing?” he asked as he ran up to her. “Who was that? What’s going on?”
She turned back to the doorway, and Aaron saw three officers there, lying with their mouths agape in a rapidly growing pool of blood. Mara had shot each one in the chest, but the top one, a particularly corpulent officer, had bullet holes in the center of his forehead as well.
The sight chilled Aaron to the bone. These men hadn’t fallen in battle—they’d been executed right in front of his eyes, and the executioner was his friend.
“Mara?” he asked tentatively. “Are you … are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice as monotone and impassionate as a robot.
“Are you sure?”
She folded up her weapon and slipped it into a holster under her arm. Only then did Aaron notice that her hands were shaking.
“The battle’s over,” she said. “We’ve taken the bridge and killed or captured all of their key leadership. The battle cruiser is ours—all that’s left is cleaning up the last of the survivors.”
As if in confirmation, a troop of almost a dozen Imperial prisoners marched past, led by Lieutenant Castor with their hands on their heads. A handful of Outworlders escorted the prisoners, Pallas among them.
“Corporal Soladze, Cadet Deltana,” said Castor. “Or should I say, Ensign Deltana? Good work. Excellent work indeed.”
“Lieutenant,” said Mara. She saluted sharply, and Aaron followed suit.
“As you were.” He turned to the other escorts and gave them a command, probably to take the prisoners to a place where they could be held. His men nodded and led them out without a word.
“Mara, is something wrong?”
“Nothing wrong, sir. This deck is clear.”
Castor peered into the room with the dead officers and frowned. “I trust you’ve been taking prisoners wherever practical?”
Mara hesitated. Without thinking, Aaron stepped forward.
“Sir, it is my fault. I am kill these men.”
“Oh? And why did you do that, Ensign?”
“I am sorry, sir. I came to look for Mara, and was alone on deck when this door opened. Before can walk out, I shoot all three.”
“And what about this head wound on the Lieutenant Colonel here?”
“He ordered my father’s death,” Mara said, her voice low and primal. “He was bleeding out. I made sure he was dead.”
Lieutenant Castor’s eyes narrowed. From the look on his face, it was clear he wasn’t buying the story. Still, he nodded.
“Very well, but from now on, I expect you to take prisoners wherever possible. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Aaron and Mara said in unison.
Lieutenant Castor turned to Mara and said something about sending her to the medical bay for a psychiatric evaluation. She nodded wordlessly and saluted. A few moments later, the lieutenant was on his way off the deck, leaving them alone.
“He killed your father?” Aaron asked.
“Yes. When we tried to escape the system with the other refugees, the Imperials disabled our ship and took us prisoner. That man sentenced my father to die for the ‘offense,’ for piloting a ship of escaping refugees. He wanted to send a message. Well, we got the message all right. The Imperials are a disease that should be purged out of these stars as quickly as possible.”
Her words, though forceful, had lost their edge. If her hatred was like a knife, it was as if the blade had gone dull with overuse. Aaron didn’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry, Mara,” he finally managed.
“Don’t be. Justice has been done.”
Justice? Or revenge?
“Come on. This place is a mess. Let’s get back to the others.”
She lingered for a moment, staring at the bodies. From the look on her face, it was almost as if she didn’t want to leave them. Before Aaron could speak again, though, she shook her head clear and turned away.
“All right. Let’s go.”
* * * * *
The battle was a decisive victory. Aaron could tell by the way the soldiers filled the bars and cafes on the main orbital afterward, celebrating long into the nightshift. From what he could gather, the Flotilla had caught the Imperials completely off-guard, capturing or destroying all of their major capital ships within the first hour of the battle. A few of the forces scattered across the system had moved to fight back, but they were too little, too late, and the Flotilla made quick work of them. Others had escaped, but without the New Pleiadians’ advances in FTL technology, it would take them weeks to rendezvous at the nearest occupied system. And by then, the Outworlders would probably have taken it, too. All in all, things had gone extremely well.
Not that it made their losses any easier. Of the thirty-eight original members of Fourth Platoon, seven were dead, six critically injured. Nestor was the only one Aaron had known. Strange to think that someone his age who could have been a friend—and probably would have been, given time—was now a charred corpse in a body bag.
And Mara—even though she’d survived the attack, something about her had changed, and he didn’t know what. It disturbed him even more than Nestor’s death. Before, she’d been hard on him, bu
t at least she hadn’t been cold. Now, she was practically frigid. And it wasn’t just Aaron she wasn’t talking to—since the battle, she hadn’t talked to anyone. The others were starting to whisper about her behind her back. Aaron couldn’t tell what they were saying, of course, but from the way they glanced at her whenever she happened by, he could tell what they were talking about easily enough.
All of that was enough to give him a headache, and he so didn’t want to deal with that right now. If everyone else on the orbital was celebrating their victory, he wanted to join in. Granted, he almost felt like an imposter, considering how his part in the battle had lasted less than ten minutes, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy himself.
He stepped into the most crowded bar on the Bacca main orbital and scanned the room for any familiar faces. The place was just like any number of Outworld bars he’d been to as a star wanderer: low ceiling, dim lights, dented and well-worn tables and counters. The pungent mix of alcohol, hookah smoke, and body odor hit his nose like a meteorite, but that was just part of what gave the place its character. The place was so crowded, it was standing-room only, even at the bar. Most of the people there were soldiers, though he didn’t recognize anyone from Fourth Platoon.
“Ah, Aaron,” someone called out to him in Deltan. He looked to his left and saw Jason, waving to him from the busiest table. The Thetan had a wide grin on his bearded face, but his eyes were still clear, in spite of what looked like a glass of vodka in his hand.
Aaron walked over. “Good to see you, Jason,” he said in his Orianan creole. Jason scooted up close to the person on his right to make room on the bench. All around him, others jostled to do the same.
“Sit down, sit down. Yes, that is good. You are excellent pilot, my friend. Excellent pilot. Good work.”
“Eh, it wasn’t much,” said Aaron. “No fancy flying, just straight by the book. Got any of that booze?”
Jason grinned and pulled a cup from the dispenser at the center of the table. “It is good to see you alive, my friend. Many are not so fortunate, may their souls fly to Earth in peace.”
“Yes indeed,” said Aaron. The gloominess came over him again, so he glanced across the table at the other soldiers. They were gathered around a wild-haired, red-bearded man who was easily more than half a head taller than anyone there. He smiled magnanimously and spoke in a loud, jovial voice. On his lap sat a pretty girl with a remarkably low-cut dress. She stroked the man’s chest and looked up at him as if he were the only one in the room.
“My friends,” the man said in Gaian, his loud voice clear enough that Aaron could understand almost every word. “This victory belongs not only to me, but to all of us. If we do at Iayus and Colkhia what we have done here, the Imperials don’t stand a chance.”
His rousing words met with cheers around the table, but Aaron couldn’t help but frown. What does he mean, ‘this victory belongs not only to me’? Who was this guy?
“That man is Samson,” Jason explained as if reading his thoughts. “His ship is Starflight II.”
“Samson, eh?” The name was familiar, though only vaguely so. He remembered hearing something about a Samson at Nova Minitak, a wealthy starfarer who kept a girl at almost every port in the sector. From what he’d heard, he sounded like one of those larger-than-life legends that roamed the Outworld stars.
“Who is this?” Samson asked, gesturing with his hand at Aaron. “You look like a pilot.”
“Samson, this is Aaron Deltana,” Jason explained. “Drop-ship pilot, Fourth Platoon, assigned to the Aegis.” He slapped Aaron firmly on the back, nearly bowling him over.
Samson narrowed his eyes. “Deltana, eh? You Isaac’s brother?”
At the mention of Isaac, Aaron’s heart skipped a beat. “Yeah—how do you know him?”
“He is part of the Clandestine Advance Guard,” Samson explained. It took a few moments for Aaron to process “Clandestine Advance Guard,” which made it impossible to catch the rest of what Samson said. The meaning, though was clear enough. His stomach sank.
“Isaac? Where is he?”
“Ah,” Samson said, grinning. “That is a secret, my friend. But let’s just say, if all goes well, you’ll see him at Colkhia.”
“Is it Colkhia next?” someone at the table asked. The others all shook their heads.
“No, definitely not.”
“Colkhia is on other side of Iayus.”
“But isn’t that where the flagship—”
“—moving out soon, though.”
“—lots of soldiers from Iayus. Don’t know if—”
The cacophony of foreign voices was enough to give Aaron a headache. The edges of his vision blurred, and he shut his eyes just to come back to his senses. Eventually, his mind cleared, letting them all fade back to the background.
“Your brother speaks much of you,” Samson said, his voice louder than all the others. “He asks of you everywhere.”
Aaron opened his eyes again and met Samson’s gaze. He was a powerful, charismatic man who radiated so much self-assurance, Aaron couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous. The gorgeous girl on his lap didn’t help. He stroked her long, dark hair, his hand drifting down her shoulder and back to her waist.
“Glad to hear it,” Aaron muttered. He lifted his glass and took a long drink.
“He speaks very highly of you. Says you’re a great pilot.”
“Does he?” Normally, Aaron would be skeptical about a thing like that, but coming from a man like Samson, he couldn’t help but believe it.
“Yes, he does. You are from the Oriana Cluster, yes?”
“Yes.”
Samson said something about being there when the Imperials took over Oriana Station, the main hub and gateway to the star cluster. He became suddenly serious, and spoke at length about the freedom of the Outworlds and how important it was to draw a line that the Imperials would never cross. Aaron caught almost every word, but he had trouble making sense of long sentences. It aggravated him to no end. He’d have to spend another nightshift with the neural stimulator program.
Their conversation didn’t last long, though. The other people around the table soon clamored for him to tell a story about his exploits. He smiled at Aaron apologetically before humoring their request. The story wasn’t about something he did before coming to the New Pleiades, though—it was about a run-in with the Imperials at Bacca just before the battle had started. The table suddenly went silent, everyone listening with rapt attention. Samson played the audience like a master puppeteer, weaving a tale that would no doubt spread clear to the other side of the Outworlds in a few standard years.
Clandestine Advance Guard. Why did Isaac get such an awesome position with big-name pilots like Samson, while Aaron was stuck as a petty drop-ship pilot for a tiny ragtag platoon? He took another long drink and drained the last of his glass. The alcohol stung his throat, but that was a welcome distraction.
“Hey,” said Jason, speaking to him in Deltan again. “I hear we are leaving for Iayus very soon. Strike hard, strike fast, make victory just like Bacca. Is good, no?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Aaron muttered.
“Hard times, very hard times. But no worry. We look out for every other. When over, all be heroes, yes?”
“I guess so, yeah.” Some of us more than others.
“Well, I am turning in,” said Jason, rising to his feet. “You have good nightshift here.”
“No, I’ll come back with you,” said Aaron, rising as well. He was out of money for drinks, and he could practically feel the neural stimulator calling to him. That state of total relaxation as the psychedelic fractals filled his view. He craved that sweet sensation more than he craved alcohol. And the best part was that there’d be no hangover.
“It’s going to be a long nightshift,” he muttered with a grin, more to himself than anyone else. At least, he certainly hoped so.
Fractures Emerge
“Paladin wing, launch! Repeat: Paladin wing, launch!”
&nbs
p; Aaron threw the throttle forward and gripped his flight stick eagerly as Paladin-4 hurled itself from its mother-ship into the starry void. The battle was in high pitch. Explosions flashed in all directions, and the scanners showed swarms of green allies weaving in and out of the larger, less maneuverable Gaian Imperial warships. The channels were all full of chatter, but for the moment, the Imperials hadn’t noticed the eight smaller drop-ships that had just undocked from the Aegis. It would spell their doom.
Aaron’s nav-computer selected the target as the flight commander explained it over the intercom. Gaian Imperial battle cruiser, name unknown, distance twenty-one-point-four klicks. Commander Noah was talking fast, making it hard to catch each word. He said something about holding formation, but Aaron didn’t wait. With tracers and projectile fire arcing all around him, he pointed the Paladin-4 at the target ship and made a full engine burn.
The force of the sudden acceleration threw him back against his seat with multiple gee forces. He clenched his thighs tightly and breathed in quick sips as the time on the ETA counter fell from hours to minutes to one minute and several seconds. He pushed it until it read fifty-one seconds and cut the burn, returning them to a state of controlled freefall.
Only then did he notice that he was three or four klicks ahead of the rest of the wing. They were accelerating, but not fast enough to catch up before the midway point. In the meantime, the battle cruiser was already starting to launch countermeasures.
Oh, shit.
“Paladin-4! What are you doing?”
“Sorry, commander. Made too fast engine burn, not catch understand …”
Aaron’s words turned to gibberish as the fuzziness around his vision began to grow. He switched on the autolasers and gripped the flight stick with both hands. The rest of Paladin wing began to accelerate to catch up with him, but it would still take some fancy flying to get through in one piece.
The autolasers flashed into action, and he banked hard to the right to avoid the first wave of enemy fire. Tracers arced all around him, as if he were in some sort of a psychedelic dream. The only sounds were the whir of the lasers and the rush of the maneuvering jets, along with the occasional patter of projectile fragments that the lasers had shot down.
