The Farthest City

by Daniel P Swenson

  The lights came on and the hatches opened. The harnesses retracted, and everyone raced to complete their tasks. There wouldn’t be any air at first, or gravity. Everyone had to complete their pre-launch tasks in zero-g, wearing vac suits, then get themselves restrained again before the ship began moving out-system.

  Colonel Go’s voice came over the comm. “We’ve got just over six hours to get Dauntless ready to fly. Do your jobs well. I’m counting on each and every one of you.”

  The civilian techs went straight to the command module to work with the nav computers. The soldiers had been assigned simple mechanical tasks for the most part.

  Sheemi finished checking the first set of docking clamps, and Connor came up behind her to test the pressure seals.

  Their job was to check the couplings between ring modules. Out of all the crew on Dauntless, she’d been paired up with Connor Ridgeway, a cocky kid from Jesup. When they’d first met, he’d started by telling her his war stories, then moved on to professing his love for her. She’d been bored by his stories, but soon wished he’d go back to them.

  “I love your golden skin,” he said for the third time.

  She tried feigning deafness. That worked for a while.

  “That jet black hair…”

  “Shut the fuck up, Connie.”

  Sheemi worked her way around the ring with Connor in her wake. Despite her training, everything seemed unfamiliar. In zero-g, there was no up or down as there had been on the moon. She struggled to keep herself moving without collisions, finding it difficult to follow a curved path. Her body kept wanting to drift into the outer bulkhead.

  Each ring module was the same shape overall, although some were longer than others. They passed through the fab, cargo, armory, and command sections, trying not to get in the way of all the others bustling about. They checked the couplings where the end of each module had docked with the next.

  In the background, Sheemi heard their navs relaying new information over the comm.

  “Scope burst from V sat,” someone said. “We’ve got one Hexi ship moving off L3 and on vector for our location. Delta one point niner niner AU. They’re coming around Venus faster than we thought.”

  “Stay on target, people!” Colonel Go said. “Every second counts.”

  “T-minus four hours twenty-one minutes,” said one of the navs.

  She’d expected the attack. They all had, but hearing it confirmed still made her pause. This could be the last four hours of my life.

  By the time they’d reached the far side of the ring, Sheemi’s arms had tired from all the pulling. They entered the cupola. Through one of its four windows, she had a clear view of the other two ships being assembled. Beyond the rim of the moon, Earth hung brilliant in the background.

  Connor tapped her faceplate. They had work to do. She heaved herself forward to where the cupola joined the rec mod and floated right past their destination, the controls for operating the docking port. She grabbed a handhold to right herself, and Connor drifted into her.

  “Oof,” he said.

  “Shit,” she muttered. “Get off me, Connie. Turn it around.”

  “Sorry, Sheems,” he said.

  She could hear the laugh in his voice. She wanted to smash his face. Her clock showed they were behind schedule. They were taking too much time. Almost five hours had passed, and they still had six couplings to go. She shoved past him and tested clamps on one side, he on the other.

  “Unlocked clamp,” she said, and with a sinking feeling, she checked the others. “Make that two.”

  “No seal,” Connor said, the joviality gone from his voice.

  They would have to use the contingency procedure they’d trained on, partially loosening the docked module ports, manually guiding them back together using the thrusters, then sealing with the built-in hydraulic clamps.

  “Unlocking clamps two, four, six, and ten,” she said.

  “How you doing, Tanamal, Ridgeway?” Sargsyan asked over the comm.

  “We’ve got a bad seal on number seven, Sergeant,” Sheemi said.

  “Get it fixed. You’ve got two hours. If you two blow the schedule, you’ll put the whole ship at risk.”

  “Roger that.”

  She and Connor fired the thrusters in small bursts, keeping the ports lined up and on center. The ports came together.

  “Something’s wrong,” Sheemi said through gritted teeth. “The clamps won’t lock.”

  Connor glanced at her. If they didn’t get this done right, the two modules could rip apart when the ship moved. She wouldn’t let that happen.

  “Open them back up again,” she said.

  Sweat collected along her face. If they couldn’t get the ports clamped in time, they could drift apart and they would have to realign them. She winced at the thought, but there was nothing else they could do.

  Sheemi slammed the controls into reverse and the clamps banged open. She refastened them, hydraulics whining as they locked grudgingly into place with a satisfying thud, but her heart continued to pound. They were running later than ever.

  Connor finished locking the other clamps and checked the displays. “Sealed.”

  “Cupola and rec mod locked and sealed,” Sheemi reported over the comm.

  “Get moving,” Sargsyan said. “Hatches lock down in ninety-two minutes.”

  They had to board the bus and strap in before the Dauntless’ main engines fired, but they had four more couplings to check first.

  We burned over an hour just fixing number seven, she thought ruefully. “Let’s go.”

  They righted themselves, exited the hatch, and closed it. Then Sheemi hauled herself onto the next coupling, and the one after that, until her biceps began to go numb, hurtling through the remaining modules.

  Sargsyan waited for them outside the bus as they checked the last coupling. Sheemi sighed with relief when Connor verified its seal.

  “Get in,” Sargsyan said. “You’re the last ones.” He sealed the hatch behind them. Sheemi got herself locked down. After the rush of assembly, time slowed to a crawl. Will we make it? Will this crazy ship even move? She listened to calibration protocols as the engines primed.

  “Picking up energy discharges from the Hexi location. Sub-hundred terajoules. Reflectance shows a large number of objects over a thousand-k plane. They’re small. Could be missiles.”

  “Twenty-six bogies flagged, twenty-nine. Delta one point one three AU.”

  “V sat down, V sat down. Posting L4 sat.”

  She tried to imagine what was happening outside the ship, moving parts scattering across a solar system that felt so small now she was about to leave it.

  “L4 sat down. Posting L1 sat.”

  The Hexi had already shot down their satellite orbiting Venus. Now they’d destroyed the L4 satellite. She didn’t know exactly where that one was located, but she knew it must be closer to Earth. They’re coming for us.

  “Main engine burn in eight minutes.”

  Dauntless began to move, pressing Sheemi into her seat. Everything shook hard. The acceleration wouldn’t let up until they initiated IFD. She willed herself to relax, to not resist the force pushing her into the acceleration couch. It was harder to breathe, but some of her tension drained away. They were underway, and they hadn’t shaken into pieces. She said a silent thanks to the clamps she and Connor had secured.

  “We’re at thirty k per sec. Thirty-one.”

  “Picking up some spin,” one of the navs added.

  “Compensating. Engine three. Two-second burst. Three…two…one…now.”

  She felt the force of it, as somewhere on the other end of Dauntless, one of the thrusters lit up. The vibrations worsened.

  “T-minus forty-three minutes.”

  “Adamant is away.”

  Everyone cheered. At least one ship had escaped, except now the Hexi had one less target. She could almost feel the increased focus.

  The navs spoke faster. They were getting close to their own moment of
truth. Dauntless would either fly or die trying.

  “Commanders, this is Makinen. We’re launching interceptors to buy you some time. Best of luck.”

  “Missile launch from Luna, ma’am. Intercept in eleven minutes.”

  Sheemi felt the impending threat as minutes ticked by. Death was coming. Maybe the interceptor missiles from the moon would make a difference.

  “Interceptors knocked out ten bogies. Eight bogies redirecting towards Luna. Five fixed on Tenacity. Six on us. They’re gaining speed.”

  “Impacting Luna Base now.”

  “Luna, status? Repeat, Luna, confirm status.”

  “L1 sat detected a debris cloud on the moon’s surface,” another nav said.

  “They’re gone,” someone said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Stay the course, MacAteer,” Go said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sheemi couldn’t get herself to believe it. General Makinen had survived Aubagne. He’d sent them into space. Larger than life, the general was probably dead now. The Hexi were bringing the fight, and she and the rest of the crew were sitting ducks.

  “Tenacity is underway.”

  It was just them now. Them and the Hexi.

  “Initiate IFD,” Go commanded.

  “Selecting n-universe for local space trajectory.”

  “N-viscosity increasing. Boundary layer penetration in t-minus fifty seconds.”

  “Excellent,” Go said. “Let’s see what she can do.”

  “Scopes are hot. Scopes hot,” a nav said, his voice cool and calm. “Bogies delta point zero zero two eight AU.”

  The lockdown bars of the acceleration couch began to vibrate. Sheemi’s heart pounded. Somewhere out there, something was coming for them at high speed. A Hexi weapon sent to gut them into the vac.

  “T-minus twenty…nineteen…eighteen…”

  “Bogies closing, delta point zero zero two one AU,” a nav called out, her voice high and tight. “ETA ninety-two seconds.”

  A fine hum tickled Sheemi’s bones as something spun up. The drogue, they called it. Focusing lasers and antimatter guns and weird fields. IFD. Chine magic appropriated by Earth’s best engineers. The tech they hoped would do the impossible, take them somewhere far away.

  “…five…four…three…two…one—”

  Chapter 7 – Spliced

  Izmit and Abby did not come back the next day. Two days went by, then a third.

  His door tone sounded on the fourth day. When he opened the door, Abby looked past him, searching.

  Her face had a fragile look as if she might cry. “Have you seen him?”

  Kellen had assumed they were down below, working without him, trying some other way of activating the sphere.

  “No,” he said and felt the beginnings of his own anxiety. What if the government has taken Izmit? We might never see him again. Kellen had been afraid this would happen. Just the possibility made him feel sick.

  “Did he say anything the last time you saw him?” Kellen asked.

  “He was going to do some research. He had to find a Singer. And now he’s been gone four days. I’m worried.” She came inside and sat down. She looked exhausted, dust speckling her face and hair and clothes.

  “You went looking for him below.”

  She nodded. “I thought he might be trapped down there. Stuck under some collapsed rubble.”

  “Before he brought you over to meet me, I hadn’t heard from him in days,” he said, surprised to still feel some spite about it. “He disappears sometimes.”

  “This is different. After I checked his place, I asked at the depot—they haven’t seen him, either.”

  Kellen had been there once, a converted attic on top of a repair depot. No one noticed another dirty man carrying tools, Izmit had explained.

  “Let’s go back and check his place again,” Kellen said.

  No one answered their knock on Izmit’s door. The depot was closed, all the workers gone home after the evening shift. Kellen tried the door and found it locked.

  Abby opened her coat and took out a tool kit. “Let me try.”

  She placed a small disc against the lock pad. Red light leaked from underneath it, flickering, then dimming. The lock clicked open.

  They slipped inside, shutting the door behind them. Izmit’s household habits hadn’t changed. Dirty clothes still littered the floor of the single room. An assortment of shovels, picks, and other tools leaned against one wall. A mattress and table formed islands in the mess. Kellen walked along the walls, where maps of the habs hung. He was surprised to see photos of some of his paintings as well. At the back, unwashed dishes cluttered a kitchenette.

  A card occupied the one clear spot on the tiny counter. Kellen picked it up. The vid card stirred at the warmth from his fingers, coming to life, its loop playing out. Human-shaped chines marched along, more joining from different directions, until the crowd of marching chines all turned sharply ninety degrees and marched into the camera. A title appeared: Collectors of Modern Antiquity: Chinery Retrospective. On its opposite face, a word had been scrawled: Hedlund.

  He handed the card to Abby.

  “You think this is where he went?” she asked.

  “Maybe.”

  She pursed her lips, turned the card over and over as if she could extract the truth from it. She handed it back to him. “Let’s go.”

  #

  The train stopped at Cherry Station, then Waycross and Coburn. Fort James would be next. The chine-built underground train ran smoothly, just the gentle tug of momentum as it came to a halt at the station. They took an escalator and walked out the west gate onto ground level. The few people on the streets hurried by without any greeting.

  Kellen had been to this part of the city a few times. The underpopulated western neighborhoods had always had a bad reputation, even before people had begun to evacuate underground. More crime, even a few murders over the years. As they approached their destination, Kellen’s imagination went to work. Pedestrians became criminals. Killers lurked in the shadows. He caught himself walking faster, as if he could outrun his fear.

  Slow down. Stay calm, he told himself.

  “Why didn’t he tell us?” Abby asked. “We could have helped.”

  “He always keeps things to himself.”

  Abby’s comm led them farther into a commercial district. Multistory buildings hemmed them in, the narrow paths lost in shadows as the sun waned. The building they sought was sandwiched between two larger ones. No one was about. The doors were battered and bent, but firmly locked. Vid spray on the wall played the same sequence as Kellen’s card, but the place seemed deserted.

  “Now what?” Kellen asked.

  A series of events and dates scrolled down the door.

  “Look.” Abby pointed to one in particular: Dr. Edward Hedlund to present recent findings on chine philosophy and the proof of their imminent return. Nine o’clock, November 27, 5286.

  “That was two days ago.”

  “There’s another presentation tonight. Maybe Hedlund will be here.”

  “Yeah, in three hours.”

  Abby shrugged. “We wait.”

  “Not here, though. This place gives me the creeps.”

  They left and walked along the paths. As twilight descended, more pedestrians appeared. Kellen failed to see any police or soldiers. Who were these people going about their business when most of the populace was in the habs at night? Criminals? Then again, he hadn’t retreated to the habs yet, either. Perhaps the people here weren’t as afraid as most others. Still, in the quickening gloom, it felt like hostile territory.

  “Here,” Abby said. “Hungry?”

  A vendor’s cart had drawn a small crowd, a flickering sign illuminating sizzling pans of meat and vegetables. Kellen’s stomach grumbled.

  Despite his hunger, the food didn’t taste right. He dumped his in a recycler and watched Abby eat. She always seemed so centered. Even when she feared the worst, he saw no sel
f-doubt, none of the anxious uncertainty that burned inside him. Just like Izmit, she never seemed to question what drove her. Why was he so different from them?

  “When did you know?” Kellen asked, blurting out the question.

  “Know what?”

  “You were a Lighter. One of the Four.”

  She looked away for a moment. “I always knew. My family talked about it when I was a child. Before I was two, I was taking things apart and trying to put them back together.” She brushed her hair from her eyes. “They protected me, told folks I was just a bright kid. But everyone in the neighborhood knew. Knows. It’s a widely held secret.”

  He marveled it had been so easy for her. Her life was infused with love, acceptance, things he could only envy.

  She smiled. “And you?”

  “I grew up in Grand-Mère. No one told me until kids in school saw my drawings and started calling me names. My fourth year. I didn’t stop, though. I couldn’t. My parents ignored it, but they never treated me like a normal kid. They always kept their distance. They were disappointed.”

  Abby’s gaze never left his as he spoke.

  “Later, I met some others like me. A Digger named Cesar and a Singer, Pearl.”

  “What happened with them?”

  He hadn’t planned on speaking of these things. He’d done everything he could to suppress those memories, and now here he was, dredging them up again, and with them more hurt than he cared to endure.

  He cleared his throat. “Things didn’t work out. I moved to King City before the war started and the trains shut down. Somewhere no one knew me. I made sure my real art would be hard to see.”

  “You switched cities?” she asked, eyes wide. “That was a brave thing to do. I could never leave.” She laughed and turned back to her food.

  Not brave, Kellen thought. Desperate.

  Kellen fiddled with his chopsticks as Abby finished. The other diners had dissipated, and the cook hunkered back for a smoke.

  “Time to go,” Abby said.

  The building was open when they returned. Kellen heard voices. Caution urged him to stop, rethink this, but Abby had already entered. He hurried to follow. They sat in the back of a sparsely occupied amphitheater.