This Starry Deep

by Adam P. Knave

  And so the time passed. Mud looked tenser the closer we got, but that only made sense. I wanted to talk to him about it, but it wouldn’t help. We both knew why, his father and I, and nothing we said would change the fact of it. He was headed right to the last place he wanted to be. But he had us, and he knew that too. We both had to trust that would see him through. That and his own natural ability to get a job done.

  About halfway through the second day, Chellox flicked a warning light and told us to make sure we were awake and strapped in. Jonah looked at me and flashed me a grin. I returned it and then gave Mud a wink. He just nodded at me and checked his straps.

  The turns and insane maneuvers started up again, not long after that. Chellox threw us around space hard and fast. As we entered Hurkz-controlled space he had to. A large part of this mission depended on us getting close before they knew we were here. Which meant Chellox had to stay at the extreme edge of sensor rage at all times.

  That wasn’t easy when there were multiple ships to consider. His display flashed and he hissed at it, correcting course over and over. There was no way possible to avoid total detection, but Chellox flew us fast enough and moved in confusing enough ways that nothing picking up our presence would know quite what to do with it.

  Soon enough we would have to abandon the ship and go to GravPack travel. Three of us, small as could be and moving quickly through their system, would be close to invisible. We just needed a ship to get us close enough. Technically we could’ve made the whole trip on pack alone, but Jonah’s knee wouldn’t take that sort of travel well, Mud hated it, and I was a bit out of practice. So instead, we cut down the time for that and left ourselves an escape ship just in case.

  It also bought us time for the rest of the plan to kick in. The other ship, the human one, entered Hurkz space about the same time we did. It went a far more direct route, trying to be noticed. Along with it came recordings and normal activity to make the Hurkz think we were in it.

  We needed it to fool them, but also to make them show us where we were headed. They gave it docking instructions toward a certain spaceport on a specific planet. That became our new goal. Chellox dipped and spun us far away from that location. We swung around again and made a few maneuvers that even I couldn’t quite follow. The Tsyfarians had certainly sent us one of their best.

  We finally reached a good drop point and unbuckled.

  “We’ll comm you when we need extraction,” Jonah said, reaching for the airlock. “Stay out of sight.”

  “I intend to get far enough out that they won’t be able to find me,” Chellox said.

  “But still close enough to meet up, I hope,” Mud said.

  I laughed. “This is a bad place to hitchhike out of.”

  “I’ll be there when you need me,” Chellox promised.

  We entered the airlock together and readied ourselves as it hissed shut. A count of five and the outer lock cycled. Jonah jumped first, followed by Mud and then me, taking up the rear.

  Open space greeted us with cold arms. My GravPack came online and the HUD flashed into life. I opened a short-range communications channel between just the three of us. It would only work within about six hundred feet, and wouldn’t bleed much signal at all.

  “Free flight or formation?” I asked Jonah.

  “Free flight while we get bearings. Formation for the ride in, and back to free a bit out. Sound good?”

  “Sure thing.” I selected a few gravity wells and started off in the general direction of the eventual landing point. Mud wobbled a bit, selecting odd points, I’d guess, while he found his footing with the packs again. I figured he hadn’t used one since we last made him train.

  We flew easy, a good distance apart but all in the same general direction for about ten minutes. Not going anything like as fast as we could, giving the decoy ship a chance to get closer. We needed to arrive at about the same time it did, or the plan could fall apart.

  “That’s us,” Jonah said, and a request for formation flight came up on my HUD. I keyed acceptance and he took over my selections and controls. Mud, too. I could tell by the way his flight pattern synced up quickly. “We’re gonna burn hot for a while. Hold on,” he said. As if there was anything to hold on to.

  We accelerated hard. My HUD showed me what we were doing, what points Jonah was choosing, and I could concentrate on my own body instead of flying. The gravfield around me constricted down when we went into hard flight and pressed all of my joints hard. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling, like being tightly wrapped up in blankets made of steel.

  Jonah’s knee must be killing him, and his shoulder couldn’t be far behind. Mud’s eyes must have felt the pressure worse than ours, too. The packs were still the best way in.

  Jonah dipped us around the dark side of the planet, scouting out satellites and other near-orbit debris. We caught sight of the decoy ship going in for a landing and Jonah cut into the atmosphere. We came in hard, flames licking around the shields that kept us alive. Jonah cut an angle that wouldn’t put us on the same screens as the decoy ship.

  My selection screen switched down field resolutions to show my choices on a planetary level. Jonah flew us in hard, just under the speed of sound. This would be the point where we would start to show up on sensor arrays. Nothing to do for it but hope they didn’t put two and two together.

  Chances were, we’d decided, that Slon would have us dock near the actual tech, just in case we were being upfront about making the trade, but far enough from it to protect himself in the event we were about to double-cross him.

  The problem was we wouldn’t know where he actually intended to place the tech. Until we’d arrived, we didn’t know where he would have us land, even. We all looked around as Jonah did a fly-by. Mud keyed the comms with an idea.

  “See that bunker?” he asked. “Fortified, near the spaceport, and guarded like the King lives there.”

  “It’s a good option,” I said, “so is something underground. Harder to get in and out of.”

  “Check your selection screens, both of you,” Jonah said. “I think you’re both right. The bunker has something massive under it. Too much space. So you build a fortress and then build a second under it. What do you think?”

  I looked at the masses on my HUD and saw Jonah had a point. “Seems like a good bet.”

  “So how do we get in?” Mud asked.

  “Front door,” Jonah and I said simultaneously.

  Jonah took us up and over hard and then cut us free of formation flight.

  “Mud, you go in from the right. Shae, surprise from above. I’ll go in level,” he said, and he split off.

  Mud looped around, his flight pattern much more stable now - he must have spent a bunch of the flight in going over controls in his head. I went straight up and stopped dead, holding there carefully.

  Jonah leveled off, dangerously close to the ground, and started in, zipping between buildings and vehicles for maximum confusion. Mud circled and came in higher, from the right. As they moved, I targeted the ground and dove.

  The planet came up to meet me fast, air rushing to get out of my way. I extended my shield a good ten feet, just in case, and soft-selected a ninety-degree turn, not keying it in but letting the selection hang there, waiting.

  As the last second, maybe eleven feet from the ground, right above a set of guards, I broke hard right to cross Mud’s path. The guards dove for cover and Mud screamed by them. The combined effect gave them no time to work out what was going on.

  From their point of view, something had almost fallen on them, turned impossibly, and then came back the other way within half a second. They didn’t even have time to reach for a radio before Jonah hit them full on. He came to a stop and Mud and I circled around, landing by his side. The guards lay on the ground, unconscious. Jonah had hit them with his shield as he barreled through them, hard enough to put them down for a while but not kill them.

  The door in front of us was huge. Huge and solid. I could crack the
lock, but it would take a while. Probably more time than we had.

  Jonah took a look at it too, and he sighed. “Door knocker, I think.”

  I agreed but didn’t want to. I could blow the hinges, but no, Jonah was right, it would use up too many supplies. We should get in as fast as possible. I dragged a guard clear of the door and Mud followed suit.

  “What’s a door knocker?” he asked as he set down the last guard.

  Jonah and I stood in front of the door, about thirty feet back. I motioned for Mud to join us. “Target your pack on the ground,” Jonah told him. “Anchor there.” I did the same.

  “A door knocker,” Jonah went on, “is simple. With one hitch.”

  “A hitch that will kill us, I assume,” Mud said.

  “If you want to get technical about it, yes.”

  “Dad…”

  “Best way to do this,” Jonah insisted. “Now, target a pull on the door. Keep the ground anchor in place and then reverse the pull so you pull the door to you, instead of you to the door. The only problem is—”

  “The door is going to come at us at roughly the speed of sound,” I finished. “When it pops, key a push on the door. If we time it right, the door will land clear of us. If we don’t, be prepared to jump.”

  “Jump,” Mud said, “faster than the speed of sound.”

  “Well,” Jonah said softly, “that’s why we want to do it right.”

  I set up the selections and keyed them. The door and ground fought with my body as a focal point. I wanted to look and see how Jonah and Mud were doing, but couldn’t risk taking my eyes off the door. A second would make the difference here.

  The door started to creak, buckling. The locks were ripping free and the hinges were coming out of the wall. It broke free and I keyed the push, trying to make the door stop. It kept coming.

  Chapter 39 - Jonah

  THE DOOR KEPT COMING. I could feel it before I saw it. My eyes caught up and I realized there was no way we’d get clear. So I reversed my ground tether. Instantly I started to move toward the door.

  I jacked my shield up to a good ten feet and braced myself to meet the door anyway. I slammed into it and Shae hit it not long after. The door slowed, our combined gravpush making sure we weren’t pancaked by it.

  The door hit the ground hard, toppling away from us, and we turned off our packs. We dropped the two or three feet to the ground. My knee gave and I hit, sitting. Shae grabbed my hand and yanked me back up. I increased the pressure on my brace and tested my leg. It’d hold.

  Mud came over, shaking his head. “You guys could’ve told me about the alternate plan.”

  “We made that up,” Shae admitted. “Never tried that before.”

  “Worked though,” I said with a nod. “Good idea to remember it. Now let’s go find this hibernation tech.”

  I selected a five-foot distance from the ground. Shae and Mud started running on foot and I kept up with them in the air. My knee would hold me but I couldn’t run, not now. I felt every one of my years just then. Watching my son run was fine - watching Shae, still fully able-bodied, hurt a bit, I admit.

  My body wouldn’t keep up with my needs anymore. Not always. I didn’t want to adjust to that, but again and again, I had no choice. Not the problem that second, though: we were in the base but had no idea where we were going.

  “Has to be down,” Mud said, pointing to a stairwell. “Why build an underground bunker and keep something precious in the lobby?”

  We hit the stairwell and I took point, partly out of stubbornness. My blaster found its way to my hand - I didn’t remember drawing it, but that was fine. Guards started to floor the area; we could hear their boots above and blow us. I set my blaster for range, not power. It’d take a man down but not blow a hole clean through him.

  We kept going down, watching the level doors get thicker. Boots above got closer and I glanced back to see Mud draw both sonic pistols. He sent a volley of shots bouncing up the stairwell. Screams replied.

  Ahead of me, a batch of guards turned the corner and spotted us. They opened fire and I flattened against the wall. My blaster answered them and I heard two go down. There were still five down there, though, already calling for reinforcements. We were on a clock. Once we took out that door, any idea that we were playing fair had vanished.

  Slon probably already knew, regardless. That decoy ship had landed and purposefully botched the landing, turning into a skidding ball of fire on the landing pad. Between those two events, Slon must have been making sure the tech we needed was being moved and put under extreme guard.

  Something small and dark flew forward over my head and I turned away just before the grenade went off. Shae, helping clear a path. We kept going. I fired a few shots randomly through the smoke, just to add to the confusion below.

  We left the stairway and hit the larger passageways. No way to know if we were on the right level, but I figured a change of scenery might be nice, and might confuse them some. A shot came out of nowhere and hit me in the arm. I cursed and fired back, lucky it hadn’t gotten my gun arm. We were being swarmed. Shae dove in front of me and threw herself at the guards. Mud wasn’t far behind her, the two of them going hand-to-hand out of sheer anger.

  It was like watching a dance. A violent, brutal dance. I was never much of a technical fighter. I could take a person down easy enough, but I didn’t bother with grace. A fist was good enough for me. Shae and Mud though, they both loved to get their hands dirty. Limbs went everywhere and guards fell. Mud punctuated a few kicks with a sonic blast, just to make a point.

  A guard got a shot in and hit Shae in the shoulder, right over her injury. She made a noise, a half-bitten scream, and said something to Mud. He came running back to where I was.

  “Mom says duck and cover,” he told me, and he looked at me for an explanation. I shook my head.

  “Anchor yourself to the floor and wall and ceiling. Just solidify yourself in place with the pack,” I told him, “and hang on.” Shae went down, curling into a ball on the floor. Guards piled on her.

  The first few did it by choice. The rest found themselves flying at her uncontrollably, slamming into their comrades. We stayed silent as bits of loose debris from the hall added itself to the pile Shae was making. Seconds passed, feeling like they were creeping by. Then, suddenly, everything and everyone exploded outward, hitting walls and ceiling and floor with enough force that I was sure bones broke. I know I heard a few, through the din.

  Shae stood and glared at her shoulder. She took a pill from an arm pouch and swallowed it. The pain pill would kick in fast, but wouldn’t be enough to dull her senses at that dosage. I popped one myself and bandaged my arm.

  As we went over to her, I noticed one of the guards was in far more armor than the others. I reached down and grabbed him up. It took a few shakes to wake him up and his left arm dangled brokenly, but I didn’t care.

  “Where were you coming from?” I demanded. More armor meant bigger thing to watch. Where he came from, we wanted to be.

  The guard opened his big eyes and stared at me, uncomprehending. He said something in Hurkz and started to pass out again.

  “Mud?” I asked.

  “I don’t speak it much or well, but I’ll try.” He came over and I shook the guard awake again, adding a slap. Mud asked him something in Hurkz and made him repeat the answer, slower. “One level up, other side of the compound,” Mud said.

  “Think it’s where they took the tech?” Shae asked.

  “I don’t have a better idea,” I said, “either of you?”

  They didn’t, so we set off. I took point again, by virtue of not being on my feet. We hit the stairwell door hard, Mud coming up and letting a few volleys of sonic shots go ricocheting up and down the stairs before we entered. We went up a level and left the stairway as fast as we had entered it. Guards were everywhere, all of them wearing thicker armor, same as the one we’d questioned.

  Shae and I opened fire before ducking into the doorway to avoi
d the return volley. She held up a hand and nudged me aside. The hand she’d used had grenades in it. I watched them fly: one, two, three, and four, sent off in different directions. The hallway shook as they all went off at once.

  “Baby,” I said gently.

  “They’re down, aren’t they?” she replied before I could even finish my thought.

  “Yeah, but we need the hallway still standing.”

  She rolled her eyes in response and ducked out of the stairwell, crouched low. I followed, on foot now since we weren’t running, and Mud came out with me, facing the other direction, sonic pistols at the ready.

  He fired two shots in quick succession and said “This way.” Shae and I came over and followed him. A thick security door stood there, glaring at us. “Door knocker?” he asked.

  Shae shook her head and stood in front of the panel. “I’ll get it.” She pried the panel off and started to look around for her tools, patting her pockets down.

  “I packed them. Left thigh, pockets three and four.” The thinsuit pockets were blended into the light armor in each, so they didn’t stand out unless you knew where they were. She dug into them and came out with a handful of tools.

  The panel popped off the wall and Shae went to work. The door beeped once and she stuffed the tools away. “They really think people are stupid,” she said, sounding annoyed that it wasn’t harder. I reached for the door to help open it, forgetting for a second I’d been shot in that arm. I winced and dropped my arm to my side.

  The room past the door contained nothing but another door. The lock looked far more complicated. Shae started working on it while Mud and I took up positions at the first door to watch her back.

  A few shots came zinging out of nowhere and Mud and I returned fire toward the point of origin. The guards had taken up the same stairwell we’d used as protection. Mud slid a grenade down the hall toward them and started to shoot after it, confusing everything with noise and smoke and fire.