This Starry Deep

by Adam P. Knave

  That made Slon think again. “Your gravity tech,” he said slowly, running the idea around in his mouth while he spoke.

  “Huh. Well I’m not sure if I can authorize that,” Dad said, raising an eyebrow.

  “There is not, as you told me, time for you to go and find authorization. But a deal brokered here will be binding. Your gravity tech, and your son, for the hibernation technology you seek.”

  Slon was going to play hard now that he felt he had the upper hand. Mom tensed. Dad put a hand on her knee and gave it a squeeze and she relaxed. He was still playing some game. Mills blanched as well. Dad gave him no reassurance. To his credit, though, Mills didn’t speak out or run off to tattle.

  “The gravity tech is worth far more.”

  “Is it?” Slon asked. “When you say species hang in the balance. Can you truly say that giving us your gravity technology would result in more loss of life than your current situation - or, truthfully, any at all?”

  Dad spread his hands across the table again and nodded at the screen. “Fair point. Fine, the gravity tech and my son. In exchange you give us the hibernation technology we require.”

  “This is agreeable.”

  “It isn’t to my soul, but what choice do I have?”

  “None.”

  “So we’re agreed?”

  “Make no mistake, I am prepared for trickery from you, Captain Madison—”

  “Call me Jonah.”

  “But if you deal fairly with me, so shall I with you. Cross me, however, and you will start a war.”

  “No tricks. We will approach in a standard transport, unarmed, and make the swap. Agreed?”

  “Yes,” Slon said, “I will send you coordinates.”

  “All right.”

  “And…Jonah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.” Slon switched off. Dad told Mills to unhook the data feed to make sure there was no way Slon could still be listening or reconnecting. Mills yanked a cable out and we all started talking at once.

  “Dad! You can’t mean to actually—”

  “Jonah, if you think I’m letting you give our son or gravity technology to those—”

  “Sir, you can’t—”

  “All of you, relax!” Dad bellowed. He put his feet up on the table and smiled. “Here’s what we need. Mills, get Tslakog on the phone and see what he has in the way of incredible pilots and fast ships big enough for a party of six. Then rustle me up one of our crew carriers, small. Shae, Mud, you’re with me. We leave,” he looked at Mills, “inside thirty minutes. So you best get going on those ships and pilot.”

  “Jonah,” Mom said, looking like she might slap him, “what’s the plan here? How do you pull this off without starting a war, since I know you aren’t about to give them what they want.”

  “Oh, that part is easy. We invade the Hurkz home world. Take what we want.”

  “That’s easy?” Mills asked.

  Dad laughed, loud and happy, “Have you met my family yet, Mills? I just rescued three planets in the last while, my wife escaped your own security twice from what I hear, and my son waltzed onto your ship and made sure she got away with it. You’re gonna bet against the three of us together? Son, that’s not a smart bet.”

  “And the war issue?” Mom asked again.

  “They already want us all dead. What will this do? Make them want us more dead? I’ll take that chance.”

  “No, you smiling idiot, they’ll start a war with humanity.”

  “They’re not that dumb, they can’t afford to be. Newt pointed it out, earlier, they need more space. A full on war would decrease, not increase, their expansion.” Dad insisted. “They’ll lay it all on our heads. What’s one more race that wants us dead? Seriously. At this point, what should we care?”

  “How many,” Mills asked tentatively, “races want you all dead now?”

  “Four,” Mom said with a sigh, “last I checked.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Mills,” I said to him, putting a hand on his shoulder, the way Dad did with me, “you get used to it. Most species declare you an enemy of the people and swear to see you dead, but really, they’re not going to go far out of their way to find you. Sometimes, sure. But mostly it’s just something you get used to.”

  “Which is why,” Dad said, “you should have told us the Hurkz were still after you this hard.”

  “I’m sorry, I wanted to deal with it myself.”

  “Honey,” Mom said, “this is what family is for.”

  “I’m not sure,” Mills broke in, “if you’re all crazy or not.”

  “Neither are we, honestly,” I told him, “but we’re still alive, so that has to count for something, right?

  “Hey, Mills,” Dad asked, “when I came in I had three lockboxes with me. Are they still in storage somewhere?”

  “Of course,” Mills said quickly, “Hodges wanted to get into one to see what you were bringing on board, after you left, but we couldn’t.”

  “That’s why they’re called lockboxes. If anyone could get into them, what good would they be? Regardless, we’re going to need them. Get someone to bring them to the flight deck where the Tsyfarian ship will dock.”

  “What if the Tsyfarians don’t supply the ship, sir?” Mills asked, making a note.

  “They will. Tslakog is an agreeable sort,” Dad said, turning to look at Mom. “I like him. He’s a smart guy. Gets involved. Gets his hands dirty.”

  “You can take him to brunch after we save his species. And ours,” Mom said with a headshake. “For now, don’t we have a planet to invade?”

  “Right,” Dad said, “let’s get on that.”

  Chapter 37 - Jonah

  I KICKED THE STORAGE BOXES and looked at my family. “And you always think I over prepare for these things.” I reached down to unlock the first box.

  “In general, you do. Days like today, that’s all right,” Shae said.

  I tossed her a thinsuit that looked like mine. Same black with blue along the outer leg. The line vanished at about the waist and reappeared on the back, where it scooped up and over the shoulders. Down again across her chest, the blue faded out. Over her left breast was the standard five arrows in an upside down V, with SHAE in standard block letters under the crest.

  She laughed, snatching the suit out of the air, and went to change. That left Mud. I reached out to hand him a suit of his own, crest and name in place.

  “Dad, I have a suit,” he told me, not grabbing it. I sighed at him. This discussion again.

  “Mud, you’re family.”

  “I’ve never been part of your team. I have my own suit. It’s fine, Dad, really. I don’t need,” he waved at the suit I still held out for him, “the symbolic gesture.”

  “Yeah, you do,” I said. “You are part of my team. We’ve never gone into full combat before as a family. We’re gonna do this right. As a team. Take the suit.”

  “I can’t fade in that suit. I can in mine. I mean, look at that blue, it’ll mess everything up. Even if it was flat black I’d have some kind of chance, and…”

  “Mud, you think I’m stupid?”

  “What, no—”

  “Of course the suit has your tech in it. The needles and all, though you know I hate them.”

  “No other way for me to access the color shifts.”

  “Doesn’t mean I like the idea. Either way, of course the suit has them. The blue is a default static charge, not a true color. It’ll default to this mode, think of it as a standby. But when you need to shift, it will, just like yours. Even the insignia will fade.”

  “Put on the suit, Mud,” Shae said, coming back wearing hers. It felt good to see her in the colors. Real good. Made me feel twenty years younger in an instant. “We go as a family.” Mud nodded and went to go change. “As for you, soldier,” she turned to me, her face serious, “what was going on in your head that you thought we’d, all three of us, need this stuff?”

  “Baby, this is just how I pack for
trouble. Coming up here, all I knew was trouble sat just over the horizon. You were gone, I didn’t know where Mud was, but these are the ready boxes.”

  “Your panic boxes are built for the whole family?”

  “Yours aren’t?”

  “Too many grenades to worry about proper attire.”

  “Can I just hope we don’t have to blow ourselves up again today?” Mud said, walking back. He looked great, though he walked as if he was unsure of himself.

  “No promises,” Shae said with a smirk.

  I opened the second lock box and pulled out a bunch of chargers for my Acadian blaster and stuck them in pockets. One I slotted home in the gun. A full charge to start just made me feel better.

  I pulled out some fresh sonic pistols for Mud and underhanded them to him. He caught each easily, affixing them to his suit with quick release hooks. I lobbed some packs after them and he nodded, sticking the battery packs in the pockets of his suit.

  Shae snatched her own Acadian blaster out of the air when I tossed it to her. She didn’t like to use it, but they were handy weapons. Mud had never gotten used to it and hadn’t used one in too many years, which is why he didn’t get one. They weren’t a weapon to wield unless you knew them backwards and forwards. I added some extra detonation caps and grenades and the like to Shae’s load and closed and locked the second box.

  I opened the third and Shae laughed, reaching in the box for herself. Mud groaned.

  “I hate GravPacks, guys,” he said.

  “We’re not gonna get close enough in anything else,” I said, handing him his pack.

  “This is why we have ships. You can ride inside the transport instead of strapping it to your back, now.”

  “Not as fast or hard to spot,” Shae said, grabbing extra air canisters from the box and checking their charge. “We’ll use both, I assume?”

  “Of course,” I said, handing Mud extra air for his suit. “We’re gonna need every advantage we can find, Mud. You know how to use the GravPacks, you know why we prefer them.”

  “I hate them,” he said, “they just feel…odd.”

  “You get used to it,” Shae said.

  “I never did,” Mud insisted.

  Mills came up as I locked the third box and he told us the Tsyfarian ship would be docking soon. Hodges heard our plan and lined up completely against it officially, while not even trying to stop us. Good. That was the right move. The smart one. The Government needed to be able to deny their backing.

  It would enrage the Hurkz to have agreed to something they thought was sanctioned only to be told it wasn’t. They’d cast blame and puff their chests and threaten all sorts of things. But they would not go to war. Not against humanity. The cause was obvious but deniable. The only thing they would have remaining to go after would be us. And we really didn’t care.

  Maybe we should have. We were, Shae and I at least, getting old. When I thought Shae had been taken, it could have easily been someone like the Hurkz instead of Hodges’ stupid idea. Could we ever really retire and stop fighting and running if we also kept adding names to the list of people who wanted us dead?

  Which brought me to Mud. What kind of life were we giving him? He was just starting out on his own, but he’d inherited the enemies of the family. I tried to think back to how long I would have survived if, back when I’d started, I’d been hunted by multiple species and marked for death. Probably not half as long as I had. Were we ruining his life?

  No, these were an old man’s recriminations. I had a job to do. No time to let myself wallow in answerless questions. It was, instead, time to throw myself into the breach yet again and find a way through the darkness of the sky.

  Shae caught my eye and nodded. As always, she knew exactly the pit I’d almost fallen into there. And as always, she stood there ready to pull me out of it. I loved her, more every day I knew her. That was true back when we first met and it was still true, graying and cresting decades together.

  She was my constant. The thing I could always come back to. No matter how lost I felt out there, Shae would be exactly where I needed her, when I needed her. And to think I’d wasted all that time, fighting a war, trapped on planets and working my way back, when she’d been sitting right here.

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly to her.

  She understood exactly what I meant. Of course she did. I could see it in her eyes. She nodded at me slowly. “I know. You had a job to do. Don’t regret doing it well.”

  “We’re too old to be doing this,” I whispered, moving to hold her to me.

  “Aren’t you sick of saying that and proving it wrong?” she asked against my ear.

  I laughed and let go as the Tsyfarian ship settled into the dock. It was a beautiful ship. Painted bright colors, like their fighters, it also had the same quad engine placement, except they were twice the size.

  The ship just looked fast. Curved like a stretched egg, it sat in the dock and seemed almost wrong for sitting still. I walked up to it and ran a gloved hand along the side. The hatch opened and a Tsyfarian stepped out, bird helmet in place. He took it off with a slight hiss of escaping air and nodded at us each in turn.

  “I am Chellox,” he said, holding a hand out to Shae.

  We introduced ourselves and climbed on board the ship. The colors continued inside, the interior of the ship laid out brightly. Seats and storage compartments all sat about where I would expect them, with slight differences accountable to the species’ thought patterns. A personnel ship is still what it is, though, and we buckled in after a short look around and went over the plan again, in great detail.

  Chellox grinned as he plotted our course. He loved to fly, and felt confident he could get us even closer than we’d originally planned without any problem. I discussed it with him and described the vectors needed - and speed changes required - for the sort of flight plan he suggested.

  He just nodded and assured me it wouldn’t be a problem. Turning away from us and grabbing the controls again, Chellox eased us out of the dock.

  “Mills,” I said into my headset, “got the other carrier ready to go?”

  “Yes,” he said after a second’s delay, “someone will fly it remotely from here. It’ll catch up with you at target.”

  “I really don’t think it will,” I shot back. “Either way, see you back here when we’ve achieved mission.”

  “Good hunting, Jonah,” he said, and I clicked off.

  Chellox took us out and hit the engines, hard. The internal gravity field reduced the effect, but even with it we were still slammed about like ball bearings in a washing machine. Chellox shot through space with the grace of a dancer and the angles of a pool shark.

  Sitting in that ship, looking out the viewport as we dodged and needled our way through the fleets, I wondered how we’d had a chance at all against the Tsyfarians in open dogfighting. This ship was amazing and so was its pilot. Chellox did rolls and hairpin turns that would’ve taken me twice as long just to work out, and he did them with the smallest twitches of his hands.

  “I’ve always wanted to fly free like this,” he said over his shoulder. “With the fleet, it’s always just formation and the occasional small skirmish. You, Jonah, you caused me some trouble, though.”

  “When was that?” I asked, shrugging at Shae and Mud.

  “Whose ship do you think you hung onto to invade our command?”

  “That was you?”

  “Flying under orders to search and go slow. Otherwise you would not have clung to me like a branch.”

  “No,” I admitted, “I would not have. So you got this duty as punishment?”

  “There was no punishment for being fooled by you. It was a masterful strategy. So simple that we never would have seen it. So we learn from it, instead of punishing for it.”

  “Your people aren’t stupid,” Shae said.

  “No,” Chellox laughed, “we are not. Still, it is good to be able to meet you, and your family. And to help both of our races.”
/>   “And to fly until our stomachs leave our bodies?” Mud asked.

  “And, always, that!” Chellox agreed with a laugh, and he spun the ship. We turned again and aligned with something unseen. Chellox hit the engines harder than ever and we shot forward fast enough that the only thing I could think of that would possibly outpace us would be a GravPack on full.

  Scary speed. The ship didn’t feel it. No creaking, rumbling sounds from the hull or strange strain from the engines. This ship was simply built to go flat out like this when it needed to.

  “Relax,” Chellox said, “we’re mostly a straight line from here to Hurkz space.”

  Next stop, then: invasion.

  Chapter 38 - Shae

  I WOKE UP AND BLINKED several times to make my eyes come back into focus. We still rocketed toward Hurkz space. Hitting my restraint release, I stood and stretched slowly, doing basic small-room calisthenics. Even at full speed, which broke a few minor laws of physics, it would take about two days to reach Hurkz space.

  The thinsuits could provide water and nutrients as well as dispose of waste for us, that wasn’t an issue. But you felt like you were living in a suit. So while we were on a ship, might as well take advantage of it. The Tsyfarian ship was well equipped. So we slept in shifts, just in case, and managed to not say much at all to each other.

  That silence ended up being fairly normal for Jonah and I. In the middle of a battle we could be chatty as a way of diffusing tension. Before we left we would be all about discussions. But those dark hours, the ones spent speeding across a vast star field between deployment and action, we spent in silence.

  Rest when you can rest, Jonah used to tell me, back when we first met. Back before we started fighting side by side and he would go off on missions and I would stay home and hope he would find his way back to me. So we did. Those precious hours or days between deployment and the mission became a time of quiet for us.

  We slept. We worked out when we could. Double- and triple-checked equipment, went over maps, all of it. Whatever needed doing to ensure that you survived when everything went sideways. Because no matter how hard and careful you were, every plan went sideways eventually. When it did, you could die or you could be so prepared for life that you could manage regardless.