by Mick Fraser
Angela, rolling her shoulders to loosen her aching muscles, approached the mannequin. She reached out to touch the suit. It felt warm, smooth – but solid, unbreakable but somehow malleable. There was a device on the belt that looked like a smaller version of her databand’s wrist-reader. Illith looked away without prompting and Angela removed the hypersuit from the dummy. Beneath it was a set of clean white Lycra under-armour, which she pulled on, followed by the dark suit. At first it didn’t fit, but as she settled into it she heard it buzz, before shrinking to tighten itself around her curves. She felt immediately comfortable as its temperature adjusted to suit her environment. A pair of fingerless gloves hung from the belt and she pulled them on. It was almost weightless, but the reinforced pads had a little heft to them, made it feel like armour she was wearing and not just a leotard. Illith helped her affix a thick collar to her shoulders.
“It doubles as an environment suit,” the Silsir explained. “This is a breather, should you need it, and it will adjust its temperature to suit you. The Wasp-Class is ultra-lightweight, but at close range will deflect a knife thrust. This—” she pointed to the device on the belt, “—activates a personal anti-matter field. It will absorb most projectiles and soften impact, but use it sparingly: it has a 90-beat cooldown once depleted, which can be enough to leave you dangerously exposed in a combat scenario. The hypersuit is designed to improve combat efficiency and survivability, but it cannot work miracles. Combined with your Amp and arcing, it renders you potentially lethal. I intend to nurture that potential. The next time you stand before an enemy, you will not need others to protect you.”
She tapped the floor again, bringing up the fighting ring. Angela stepped back, surprised at the buoyancy she felt. Inside the suit she had more energy and felt lighter on her feet. She twirled, skipping backwards to land on one leg, then pirouetted forwards. She realised she was smiling like a child. “This is incredible!” she shouted, leaping past Illith before swirling back around on the other side of her.
“It is not for dancing, mystraal. Come.” As she spoke, she dropped backwards into a combat stance, one arm and leg extended, back foot firm, off-hand raised above her head.
Angela, over-confident, threw a right hook which Illith ducked, then attempted a knee kick which the Silsir blocked, retaliating with a punch to the gut. Angela grunted, trying again, left, right, jab, left, kick – Illith blocked each blow with ease, rewarding the kick with a right cross. Angela staggered, then arced behind the Silsir – straight into a rising elbow that sent her sprawling to the ground with an aching eye. She leapt up and immediately arced again, this time to the other side; Illith spun, clothes-lining her with an outstretched arm.
“Goddammit!” Angela cursed, hammering her fist against the floor. She forced herself up and came at Illith with renewed purpose, but the veteran ducked, swayed and blocked every blow. Growling with frustration, Angela aimed a wild kick at the Silsir, who caught her leg and swung her, slamming her painfully against the sancto floor. Groaning, Angela sat up. “I’ve spent all week getting my arse kicked. What am I doing wrong?” she panted. “How do you see everything coming?”
Illith, not out of breath at all, regarded her without expression. “Because you signpost everything you do like an excited trask-cub. You look at the spot you intend to arc to, you eye every blow before you throw it, you broadcast whether it is a kick or a punch, how high, which side. I could best you blindfolded, even with the arcing. Get up and try again. Stop thinking. Fighting should be efficient, of course, but it is a thing of passion, of instinct. Learn to balance the two and you will live longer.”
Angela was dejected, but forced herself up. “I’m tired of losing,” she complained.
Illith hit her, twice, and dropped her back to the ground with a knee on her throat. She leaned in close and whispered to her. “Try not to think of it as losing, mystraal. It is learning.”
Illith released her and stood back, ready for another round. Rubbing her throat, Angela rose. She wiped her bloody nose and rolled her shoulders. Then she paused, closing her eyes, willing herself to be calm. All her life she had fought against her temper, a temper that had seen her in borstals and jail cells more times than she liked to admit. She had mellowed in the last two or three years, but that old anger was still in her, occasionally waking to roar and beat against its cage. For a year, beginning when she was 18, she had attended fortnightly meetings to learn any number of self-calming techniques that she had largely ignored. In the end, the only thing that had helped her was dancing to loud music and keeping busy. Working at ReachOut, studying literature and film theory, video games, anything that kept her off the streets and out of trouble. But it had all mellowed her too damn much, and now that she needed that anger she had forgotten how to summon it. She opened her eyes, saw that Illith hadn’t moved and was still regarding her without a flicker of emotion. Angela gritted her teeth. She was London born and bred, for God’s sake. This bitch was going down.
She waded in, swaying aside as Illith attacked. Calmly she blocked the following blow with her forearm, rolling with the motion to come up beside the Silsir. Only then did she arc, swapping sides and throwing a punch in one smooth, instant motion. The blow connected, catching Illith high on the left cheek and staggering her. As she moved to retaliate, Angela arced again, appearing behind Illith and landing two blows to her kidneys – or whatever a Silsir had where the kidneys should be. Illith swung a backhand, but Angela ducked, swayed around her, landed a wicked blow against the Silsir’s right knee that drove her down, then arced back to the other side to deliver a blow she was sure would finally see her instructor on her back – but the blow never connected. Illith had righted herself and was ready for it, blocking it savagely and hammering a four-punch combination into Angela’s stomach, followed by a bone-shattering uppercut, and then a blur of kicks and punches before grabbing her arm and flipping her over to smash against the hard floor. Angela rolled away, clutching her stomach. She looked up through one bruised eye, managing a smile.
“Almost… had you,” she said, struggling for breath.
“Almost is as good as dead,” Illith told her sternly. Then she seemed to relax a little. “But that was a good start. Finally. You have a long way to go, but there is potential within you.”
Angela rubbed her ribs through the hypersuit, wondering if they were cracked or just bruised. She looked up at Illith sideways. “That sounded like a compliment.”
Illith’s expression remained impassive. “We will continue your training during downtime. Something tells me we will have plenty of opportunity for practical lessons.”
The intercom buzzed as Angela got to her feet. “We’re coming out of shift in an hour, people,” Drenno said over the speaker. “The Heligan Blockade ain’t pretty, so get your shit together and be at your stations. Angela, I need you on the bridge, too.”
“What’s the Heligan Blockade?” she asked Illith.
The Silsir grunted. “You will see.”
CHAPTER 23
~THE HELIGAN BLOCKADE~
“THE BLOCKADES WERE built by the Founders,” Shimmer explained when Angela joined her and Dizzy on the bridge. “They cordon off most of the dead systems, those destroyed in the Hexen War two thousand years ago.”
Dizzy, bent at the command console, spoke over his shoulder. “They used to be a treasure hunter’s paradise. Brimming with Founder tech. Most of it’s been picked clean now – turned out to be flashy junk. Most Founder tech only worked for the Founders.”
The viewscreen was blacked out at the moment, but as Dizzy brought the Shadowstar out of Phase-shift he activated the panel. Angela gasped: beyond the ship was a wall of debris, possibly tens of thousands of miles across. She saw chunks of metal, sections of buildings and architecture, vehicles and ships, all interwoven with asteroids of two dozen different shades, some as small as cars, others the size of moons. The scale was all to shit at this distance, but even Angela could see that the Blockade was impossibly
huge. “How did they build it?”
“We do not know,” Shimmer told her, her voice made slightly metallic by her white face mask. “The Founders had talents far beyond the understanding of any other race but the Hexen and the Faraan.”
Dizzy turned to lean back with two arms supporting him on the console and two crossed in front of him. “They say the flotsam is what’s left of the civilisations the Hexen destroyed on the dead worlds, that the Founders used their detritus to wall off their graveyards. It’s almost poetic. AEGIS controls this space now, of course, and they’ve weaved a pop-shield throughout the entire Blockade.”
“Pop-shield?”
“An anti-vessel plasma dome,” Shimmer explained.
“Right,” Dizzy confirmed. “As in: if you fly into it, you pop.”
The main doors opened and Drenno entered, followed by Illith and Gaelan. Drenno went straight to his chair, flicking switches on the console and tapping things into the touchpad. Gaelan crossed the room to a chair situated before several monitors, while Illith perched beside Dizzy on the console under the viewscreen. After a moment, Drenno swivelled his chair.
“How are you?” he asked Angela. “Training tough?”
“Tough enough,” she replied, glancing at Illith, who didn’t look round.
He smiled as though he was about to reply when he stopped. His mouth fell open a little, but he cleared his throat, sitting up. “That suit, uh, it looks good on you, kid. Be careful with it. Only had one owner before you.”
She looked at Gaelan, who smiled gently as if to advise her not to press the point. Drenno changed the subject. “Figure it’s time we start treating you like a part of the crew; that means looping you in and briefing you like everyone else. Means you work with us, man the belly guns, carry your weight. Can you do that?”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked, though she couldn’t help but smile a little as she spoke.
“Hell no,” he grunted, spinning the chair back around. “See all this shit floating around out here? That’s the Heligan Blockade, which surrounds Heligan Prime, a dead system that used to be home to three living worlds. The Hexen wiped them out. The next part of the puzzle that is Angela Strange is on one of those worlds. I don’t know what’s in there, but Rathe died to get us this far, so that’s where we’re going. Diz?”
The To’ecc took over. “Dead systems are lawless. Usually home to pirates, criminals and the Founders know what else. The Cabal and the Gu’uld don’t even go through blockades. Almost impossible to get hold of AEGIS access codes unless you know who to ask. Truth be told, I’m more concerned about rulaks in the belt than anything beyond it.”
Drenno noted Angela’s expression. “Rulaks are Auton parasites, hundreds of feet long. They coil themselves around objects in the blockades and attack anything that flies through. I’ve seen them up close once or twice, and they’re not exactly pleasant. Takes an hour or so to get through at a decent pace, and we’ll be flying cold. That means everything’s off except thrusters and life support. We’re going to a world called Nix, and the coordinates we’re using pinpoint the exact grid location of the object we’re looking for. That’s all the need-to-know for now. Let’s get through this damn blockade.”
The crew scattered at Drenno’s command and Angela swung around, sliding into the chair she had manned when escaping Haze. Rathe’s chair. She shook her head, focusing.
In many ways the Shadowstar was simply a much bigger, all-singing, all-dancing version of the Jackdaw, and the gun controls were identical. There were symbols embedded around the monitors before her, which Angela realised were touch-sensitive buttons. She recognised one from her lessons with Gaelan; it meant ON. She touched it and the monitor screens flickered in unison, blinking on to reveal a forward-facing view of the Blockade from beneath the belly of the ship. It was gargantuan, bigger than anything Angela had seen so far, stretching off in all directions as far as she could see. And beyond it, they said, was the next piece of the puzzle. Was she really a weapon? If so, what had she been born to do? Was that even the right word? Had she been born at all – or designed?
She looked around. Everyone was into something, no one was paying attention to her. It was a rare feeling these days.
“Okay, here we go,” Drenno said, his voice clear over the commlink in Angela’s databand. “Take it slow, Diz. I can feel them watching us.”
Winston, hovering beside Gage as always, gave out a metallic chirrup. “Movement,” he said in his prissy, Eton-educated voice. “I’m detecting three signatures, perhaps four. They’re not agitated. Not yet.”
Angela peered closer at the two monitors. There! A gentle coil of movement about the nearest asteroid. There was a sudden jolt as something bounced off the hood of the ship and Angela started. Shimmer, beside her, placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We are navigating a debris field and barely steering,” she explained. “There will be a few bumps.”
Angela nodded as though that was a comfort. Uncomfortable sitting this far back, she got up, moving quietly across the bridge to crouch between Drenno and Dizzy. The To’ecc looked down at her, raising a finger to his scaly lips. “They’re out there,” he whispered.
“I saw one,” she confirmed in a hushed voice, “on the asteroid we just passed.”
He nodded. “There are scores in here.”
“Will they… hear us?”
“In here?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Then why are we whispering?”
“Dramatic effect.”
For a moment she stared at him, then his broad face broke into a grin and she shook her head, rising to return to her seat.
“There!” he hissed suddenly, and she swung back to peer at the viewscreen.
“I see it,” Drenno confirmed, and then Angela did, too. It looked something like a giant conger eel covered in massive black, chitinous scales, slipping fluidly between craggy chunks of rock and glinting debris. It corkscrewed towards the Shadowstar slowly, breaking off at the last instant to swerve around them like a swimming predator. Angela released the breath she’d been holding.
“They are becoming curious,” Winston said. “We’ve another, sunwards.”
Angela looked at Shimmer. “Which way is sunwards?”
“Sunwards is right, moonwise is left, as on a compass. While onboard, bridge is in the head of the ship, rear is the tail.”
She returned to her seat.
“Do not touch your sticks,” Shimmer cautioned. “They will cause your guns to move.”
There came the sound of grinding metal. One of the rulaks was brushing itself against the side of the starship. Over the intercom, Six-Tails said, “It just slid by the med lab porthole. It’s a big one.”
“We start shooting and we’re in trouble,” Drenno warned. “How far?”
“Far,” Dizzy replied grimly. “We’re only just coming up to the marker. I hope Bard’s code is good.”
“It’s good.”
“I hope so.”
“It’s good.”
The main viewscreen went dark, and a flashing red box appeared. That strange writing was above it, also in red. Drenno punched in a handful of bizarre characters, and the box began to cycle colours. Angela caught the look that passed between Drenno and Dizzy, just before the box turned a steady blue. Drenno sighed loudly.
“At least we can still trust Bard,” Illith said from the far side of the bridge.
“Never doubted it,” the Captain told her.
“Liar,” Dizzy said, as he gently angled the Shadowstar deeper into the debris field. They drifted on for some time, before Winston reported that the rulak signatures had gone, for now. Drenno sat back, dropping his hat on the console before him. Angela didn’t realise she was staring until he glanced round.
“Something I can help you with?” he asked.
As the crew busied themselves with various concerns, Angela walked over to crouch beside Drenno. “What do you think’s there?” she a
sked him.
“On Nix? Founders know. Could be anything. The Deadworlds are called “dead”, but they’re not really dead, you follow? Whatever the Hexen used on them wiped out the intelligent, sentient life. A lot of flora and fauna survived – whatever was resilient enough to live in a global wasteland.”
He fell silent. Angela looked down at the suit she was wearing and bit her lip. Gaelan was busy, her fingers tapping at her console, rotating a holographic representation of the Blockade in front of her. Angela took a deep breath and went for it.
“Did this belong… to her? To your wife?”
Drenno looked round sharply, but his face quickly softened. “It was Keera’s, yeah.”
“She was a Harlequin, too? Is that what you were called?”
He nodded slowly. “Aye. Harlequins were the elite. Hell, we were the best of the best. And she was the best of us.”
“Is that how you met?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You really want to pull at this thread?”
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
“Not especially, no. She was everything to me. She was a big part of what made me, me. When you lose that, you can’t ever get it back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That's a weird thing to apologise for, kid.”
“I didn’t mean...”
He smiled. “I know. Look, I don’t talk much about anything real. You understand? We’ve got work to do. We’ve always got work to do. When we’re done, I’ll sit down and talk. Until then, you do that suit proud, you follow?”
She sighed, smiling ruefully. “I follow, Captain.”
He winked, grinning. “Atta-girl.”
“We’re approaching the exit marker,” said Dizzy, which Angela took as a cue to return to her seat.
Shimmer tapped a few buttons beside her and a holographic image appeared above her console: five planets, each with several moons, orbiting a pair of suns. She reached into the display to “touch” one of the planets, and the image shifted, zooming in. Shimmer flicked her hand left to rotate the image, selected the world’s largest moon, and everything else fell away.
