Worldship Files: Cityships

by Erik Schubach

  Then she grinned at me and bit her silver tongue as an arm elongated reaching out through the hole and she squinted an eye and looked up as she reached for something on the other side. A moment later the door cycled open as she pulled her arm back. “There. Now, I would suggest gearing back up because I can feel Mir pushing against my control. She's starting to wake up.”

  It was still odd hearing Mother's voice coming from Mir, but I told her, “You're amazing, Mother. You've always got my back.”

  She nodded as she looked at her hands again in wonder, flexing them, “Always.” Then as I started to the corridor to get back into my Scatter Armor like Audrey was doing as she pulled off the makeshift splint. I was going to tell her not to, but then realized the armor would splint her leg better and give her full mobility back.

  I looked at the ragged tear in the arm of my SAs, where the projectile had compromised it, and watched as the nano-panels reconfigured, sealing the damage.

  Before I could pull myself out the door, Mother stopped me. “Wait. I may never get another chance, and I've always wondered.”

  I opened my mouth to ask, “Wondered what?” but found her kissing me tenderly instead. My eyes widened in shock and surprise, but then her body shifted subtly and she started kissing me more aggressively. I pulled away and a familiar smarmy smirk was on her lips as Mir said, “Wow, what a way to wake up. Didn't know you swung the cyber-way, Knith.”

  Sighing, I shook my head, “Get your brain out of the gutter, mirror-girl. We have a ship to take back.”

  Then she froze and I saw the moment she remembered what happened to Mac as her face was painted in loss and rage. “These fucking sons of bitches are going down!”

  The moment I was geared up, my mag boots engaged and helmet on with visor locked, I said almost desperately as the suit went into self diagnostic mode. “Mother?”

  “Here, Knith.”

  I had never been so relieved to hear someone's voice. I got mostly green lights down the board... good enough. Then I looked to Jameson and Mir, “Let's do this.”

  They nodded, then Mir asked almost sheepishly, “Umm, Knith? Why were we kissing? I thought I was dead when my world went black. Then when I woke...”

  I told her, “Long story, sort of busy now. We need to get to the bridge. Quickest route?”

  We could hear men down the corridor. It sounded like they were gearing up for something and I was silently glad they hadn't heard the window on the door break.

  Mir scowled toward the cargo bay, then turned to the dead end of the corridor and mouthed, “This way.”

  I looked at the brig then back toward the voices, whispering, “Jameson.”

  She followed my eyes then whispered back, “But, I want a piece of the hijackers, Lieutenant.” There was no way I was leaving defenseless and unconscious innocents undefended. And I didn't want to chance our escape being discovered and the others paying the price for it.

  I replied, “The civilians need our protection, that is our number one creed.”

  She muttered the creed, “Defend the defenseless. Gods be damned.”

  She slipped back into the brig, and we shut the door. Then Mir stared at the door control pad and it went red as she told me, “Crypto locked, nobody is getting in there unless I transmit the unlock code.” To punctuate her words, a steel shutter came down over the broken window.

  I cut my external speakers and said on our tac-channel, “Ok, Jameson. Ping me when everyone is conscious, and we'll call the all clear when we draw the sons of bitches out. We're counting on you to get the civilians out safely when we dock. We'll locate the relief workers and the rest of the security team and join you once we secure the bridge.”

  “Godspeed, Lieutenant.”

  Then I looked at Mir, who asked me, “How bad is it?”

  I shrugged, “I went down when you did. What I don't get is that we were kept alive at all and that the civilians are too. Mother says their mining ships are attacking the upper rings.” I winced at her glare, knowing she was thinking about Mac again.

  I looked at my wrist console, “Mother?”

  She displayed views of the Leviathan from the Ready Squadron, who were engaging all the mining vessels which looked to be inflicting an alarming amount of damage on the Alpha and Beta Rings. But they were being systematically wiped out by the superior ships of the Squadron.

  More views came up of men in antique vac-suits clomping along the skin, firing projectiles at the Brigade Enforcers who were exiting airlocks to engage them. Again, the enemy was greatly outmatched.

  Mir hissed in satisfaction, but I started shaking my head. She prompted, “What is it? They're getting their asses handed to them.”

  I looked at her and said, “It's a diversion. They aren't expected to win, just to keep our forces busy while the rest go for the trunk with the Underhill. They're after the Ka'Infinitum, but they don't understand what it is. Their whole cause is based on the predication that the objects of power enslave us to the Fae, that it has some sort of magical control over us Humans. They think that with its power they can take over the Leviathan.”

  She looked at me, her mirrored brow furrowing, “You can't be serious. Are they insane?”

  I shrugged. “That or misguided. It is all a myth, a legend to them, almost a religion.”

  She nodded slowly then said in a dangerous tone, “Well, misguided or not. I'm going to end that murdering bastard who killed Mac.”

  I should have possibly warned her against that course of action had we been on the world, but the law didn't apply to the Remnants. And I wasn't going to stop her if she got the chance, after what Richter did to Mac. A little voice in the back of my head reminded me that he was likely more than he pretended to be. And that Sindri had survived his spacing because he was Fae, and they didn't die in space, only froze. Could we maybe... locate his body before we got out of range?

  I made an ushering motion instead, and she turned and grabbed a maintenance hatch and pulled it off to and sent it drifting down the corridor. “After you.”

  Mother started playing a song called Under Pressure by another old royal, a Queen.

  Nodding I ducked through and looked up the maintenance tube with the ladder leading up multiple levels. She asked from behind me as I crouched, “So, you going to tell me why we were kissing? Was it a Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty kind of thing?”

  I glanced over, my face screwed up in confusion, “A cinder-what? No, it was Mother kissing me.” Then leapt with all my strength and the servos of my armor, leaving her confused expression behind me as I rocketed up the access shaft.

  Looking down I saw her gliding up after me, determination on her face. I caught flashes of the guts of the ship as they streaked past on cross corridors. When I reached the top, at a panel marked Command Control, I grabbed a ladder rung and stopped myself from hitting the top of the shaft.

  Mir looked almost like an angel gliding through a golden pond as she gracefully slowed herself with a hand on the ladder as she came to a stop beside me like it was the easiest thing in the world. I muttered under my breath to her with a smirk, “Show off.”

  She whispered primly, “Not all of us are bumbling brutes.”

  “Hey.”

  She grinned and then reached out to slowly, soundlessly, open the access panel a crack. Then the ship shuddered and the sound of docking clamps engaging echoed, metal groaning in protest as the Underhill shook violently for the long eternity of two heartbeats before settling.

  I could just see a Lancer by the Captain's chair, where Richter was gripping the manual controls for dear life while the man said to him, “Gods, Richter. Nice fucking docking.”

  “And you could do better, Smitty? These aren't the flight controls the AJAX was supposed to have, I had to improvise. We have a hard seal. Time to go to work.”

  Then he hit ships coms, “Ok people go go go, plow the road for us. Kill the roaches, we only get one chance. For human
kind!”

  The response echoed though the ship even without the intercom amplifying it, “For humankind!”

  I was about to burst out and bind them by law when I heard many mag-booted footsteps on the deck-plates beyond. The two were not alone. Then Richter pulled something out of his pack and tossed it, tumbling in zero gravity to the Lancer.

  My blood ran cold when I saw it was Graz, in some sort of jar, and Richter said, “Space this one out the nearest airlock, we don't need the filthy thing for leverage anymore. It can join all the other roaches in hard vacuum.”

  What? I was processing that, but my need to help Graz was foremost in my... In a single motion, Mir had the access door moved aside, and one bladed arm through the Lancer's back, and she caught the jar and dove back toward me before it all registered to the Outliers.

  She was yelling, “Go!” As projectiles started ricocheting everywhere, control panels sparking and exploding as I shoved Mir down then yanked myself down to glide down to the next level with her and our trapped friend.

  I could hear Richter roaring, “Stop you idiots! You're going to get us all killed before we can finish our mission. Once we get onto the Worldship, get the other humans off the boat and blow it for all I care.”

  I glanced up the tube from the cross maintenance corridor, to see a red faced Richter in his Vac suit glaring down at us. He slammed his helmet on as he backed away. “They're on the next level down. Keep them there until we get our people off the ship.”

  Mir said, “Time to skedaddle.” And she punched out an access door and we pulled ourselves out into the main level where Mac's cabin was.

  Graz was pounding on the glass of the jar yelling something that was too muffled to hear. I held up a stalling finger as I activated my mag-boots while Mir crawled like a mirrored praying mantis along the wall, almost blending in.

  We passed by Mac's cabin, and I knew where we were heading, to the main airlock on this level. Mir could survive in space and my suit afforded me more than the thirty minutes it used to as it had a re-breather oxygen canister now, thanks to my notes on this experimental armor. I could be out in vacuum for an hour now.

  We heard the lift doors starting to open as we were almost to Madame Zoe's cabin. My blood ran cold. All the other humans were in the brig, but she wasn't, had they... It was all I could do to stop from squeaking in alarm when two hands reached out and grabbed Mir and me and pulled us into a small room that had lattices of plants climbing all the walls. Madame Zoe's hydroponics garden.

  I looked to see it had been Jane who pulled us into the space, putting a finger to her lips. Then we heard mag-boots clomping heavily at a run. Madame Zoe was standing at the open door and I almost yelled out to her but the men all ran past. One ordering, “Check all the cabins, they can't have gotten very far. Sweep the next two levels too.”

  The man shouting orders stopped not two feet from the clairvoyant and looked around, then growled in frustration and followed the others. The old woman said in a pleased tone, “That should do it, they'll be chasing their tails for a while now. Hello ladies.”

  How? What? Then my eyes widened. Clairvoyants were witches... could human witches cast 'don't look here' spells? I waved absently then sputtered, “Graz!” as my visor snicked up and I reached out to Mir who was hugging first Jane then Zoe. She handed me the jar as I held an arm out and she hugged me, but you couldn't pay me to hug a witch. Zoe still freaked me out.

  I looked at the frantic Sprite in what looked to be some sort of honest to goodness jam or jelly jar. I twisted the metal lid she was keeping away from, and the moment I pulled it off, in a streak of sparkling light and dust, Graz was inside my helmet, hugging my neck like her life depended on it. “Oh thank Mab and Titania you saved me, Knith! I thought I was a gonner. They made me watch...”

  She sounded horrified and emotionally compromised as her tone conveyed a haunted anguish. “They made me watch as they spaced them... they spaced them all. They knocked them all out with gas and the mother fairy humpers just spaced them in cold blood.”

  I knew that I had already instinctively known, but didn't want to. I asked slowly, “Spaced who?”

  She sounded heartbroken as she said in a hoarse squeak, “Anyone who wasn't human. They called them roaches, monsters, and they just killed them all. Richter had any humans brought to the brig because 'we don't kill our own'.”

  We all just stood in stunned silence, processing it. All the relief workers, the doctors, everyone who came to lend the Cityships aid... all dead. All because they were preternatural? My security crew. These fucking Outliers were purists... the worst kind of fanatic. They needed to be stopped... now.

  Jane slumped against the wall then asked with hope in her eyes, “Mac?”

  I shook my head. “Richter spaced him.”

  Zoe looked at us like we were stupid, shook her head and repeated what she had said to Mac while her eyes clouded white, “The father is exposed.”

  We took a minute to get reports from Jane and Graz. They all painted the same picture. Graz learned of the Outliers' plans and of their mutiny to control the Cityships. It was the Outliers' war, not the ships breaking down that left them with only two. For all their grand talk about doing this all for humankind, they've taken tens of thousands of lives themselves. They were the monsters, and they couldn't see that.

  When she was going to fly back to warn us all, that's when they caught her. They closed all the vents so she couldn't escape. But she says she blinded five of them before Richter slammed the jar down over her.

  Jane moved to a console on the wall and tapped something in. We saw the cargo hold, and Richter followed the last of the men there out the lower airlock that was docked on the trunk. Then she went deck by deck to see only the search crew, six men were left going deck by deck.

  I leaned in when the cockpit was shown to be empty. The ship groaned and swayed as the docking clamps detached and the Underhill started to free float. Hells! Richter was ensuring we couldn't follow.

  Exhaling in frustration I looked around. “Mir, get to the bridge, vent the deck the Outlier mutineers are on to space, then fly everyone to safety on an airlock on a C or D Ring. I'm going after Richter.” No more playing nice.

  She started to ask, “How are...”

  My glare got her saluting like an ass and saying, “Aye aye, Cap'n.”

  Graz growled out in a tone thirsty for revenge, “I'm comin' with ya, Knith.” Then she said, “I knew you'd save me.”

  Mir held up a hand, “Hello? I was the one who saved your runty little ass.”

  “What is it with you humans and my ass? I mean, I know it's an awesome ass but, you're Bigs.”

  I looked at Jane, “Take care of Zoe, and when Mir gives the all clear, there are a bunch of human civilians down in the brig that need medical attention.”

  She looked worried, her big doe eyes wide, “Be careful, Knith. These people don't have any problems killing anyone who gets in the way of their holy quest.”

  I nodded, my visor snicking down as my armor reconfigured for vacuum EVA. I pulled my MMGs that remained accessible as well as my pouches; another request I made when that lack of access almost got me killed; and I assured her as I spun the weapons and headed toward the door, “They won't see me coming.”

  Chapter 13 – Back In Black

  I reached the airlock at the end of the hall and looked back to see Mir heading to the ladder to the bridge, we exchanged silent nods, then I cycled the door.

  Graz was pressing herself against my visor looking out as she prompted, “Umm... Knith, you do know the airlock they used was at the bottom of the ship? And that that excrement head detached the ship and we're drifting?”

  I nodded and corrected her. “Shithead, Graz. And yes, I know.”

  She said nervously, “Good... just as long as you know. Because then you won't do anything... you know, Knith-y.”

  I asked once the airlock finished decompressing and
I opened the outer door, sending the warning lights strobing. “I wouldn't do that now would I?”

  “Yes. You would.”

  I shrugged and said, “Ok.” Then I pushed off, sending us drifting down toward the Trunk so far below us.

  She was screaming at me, “You crazy Big! We're gonna diiiiiiiiii... wait, what's the difference between excrement head and shithead?”

  “Style and flair.”

  “Oh, ok... iiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee!”

  We hit the skin, maybe a little too fast and hard as my armor servos protested with my muscles, and I stumbled once but my mag boots held. My noisy helmet-mate looked back to me and said, “Oh, that wasn't so bad. Home sweet home, can we go inside now?”

  I said, “I don't think so.”

  She looked at me then followed my eyes first up to see explosions in space far above as Ready Squadron picked off the mining vessels that were slinging industrial laser fire back at them, the stray shots causing collateral damage on the upper rings.

  I even saw the twinkling of debris where some of the honeycomb of grid-work and massive, multilayered, clear armored panels of the sky and its Day Lights were blown out, and what looked to be some debris sucked out in the decompression, but shimmering blue ice covered the holes... Queen Mab's work.

  It was like the stories of the end times, where the peoples of the world would be judged by flame and virtue. I only hope we were found worthy by whatever gods were watching.

  Then Graz followed my glare from there to the airlock a hundred yards away, where ten men in archaic vac suits waited, weapons drawn. And behind them? Three of the mining ships, their dynamo's spinning up to charge their lasers.

  I muttered, “Mother,” as I checked the charges on my MMGs, “How about something appropriate here?”

  Another song from the anthropological archives started playing, ‘Back In Black’ by AC/DC, and with a thought, it was blaring as my muscles tensed. Then I charged shouting and broadcasting on the open frequency, “Bring it!”