A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe

by Alex White

  “Nilah Brio,” came a woman’s whisper. “I’m Agent Mikaela Dawsey, from the Fixers. I need you to get up right now and come with me.”

  Nilah peered around the bin to find a skinny, tanned woman with bright, gold eyes and a comforting smile.

  “Oh, thank god.”

  “We believe there is an active threat on your life. Let’s get you onto a transport to Lang’s headquarters.”

  Nilah stood and brushed herself off, then held out her hand. “Chuffed to see you, mate.”

  The Fixer shook it, then handed her a slinger. “Tuck that in the back of your jumpsuit. We’re going to walk straight to the maintenance dock, climb on a ship, and head for the jump gate, all right?”

  Nilah wasn’t a great shot, but her self-defense training had taught her enough. She tucked the slinger into her waistband. “What kind of hazards are we expecting?”

  Mikaela looked her up and down. “Let’s just get on with the task at hand, shall we?”

  They left Gantry’s industrial section with little trouble, emerging into a slightly more populous thoroughfare. Nilah drew lots of stray looks, and Mikaela coached her not to look people in the eye. Distant news screens overhead showed pictures of Cyril’s crash, along with old footage of Nilah from last season. Her portrait was captioned: CRIMINAL?

  “Didn’t you bring a change of clothes for me?” Nilah hissed.

  Mikaela shook her head. “Everything is going to be fine, Miss Brio. We’re almost to the maintenance dock.”

  “Okay, but there are a lot of people on this street. Suppose one of these clever boys recognizes me?”

  Mikaela shot her a grin. “It’s my job to think like that, Miss Brio. If you’ll refrain from speaking, it makes you less recognizable.”

  “Right. I should just shut it.”

  The Fixer nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Nilah’s Fixer chip itched, its golden threads still transmitting her location to their clandestine headquarters. It made sense, not deactivating the transmitter until she was safe, but it still felt strange to be a beacon.

  Her breath caught as she saw the first fluorescent orange sign for the maintenance dock. After such a horrid day, she could only think of a hot bath, so she almost missed it when a gentleman in a heavy coat drew a slinger and pointed it straight at her escort.

  Quick as lightning, Mikaela drew her own weapon and hammered shot after shot through the screaming crowd. Each sun-bright needle from her slinger went straight through frightened civilians, even as the man dove out of the way. He rolled across the roadway and came up with a flourish, his gun leveled at Mikaela. The small crowd erupted into screams and scattered as police klaxons sounded through the district.

  Nilah’s escort wrenched her by the arm, placing the racer solidly between the two shooters. Mikaela’s gunmetal was hot against Nilah’s temple, and she gasped at its touch. She genuinely wanted to see Mikaela as the good guy in this situation, but there were several uninvolved bystanders bleeding to death on the ground—as well as the nagging problem of the slinger at her temple.

  “Dawsey!” screamed the man. “Drop it and you get to live!”

  Mikaela snorted, “Not happening.”

  “You betrayed us. All of you did.”

  She leveled her gun at him, placing a picture-perfect shot straight through his chest. He rocked back with the impact of the hit and signed out the fatalist’s mark. Dawsey put a second shot through his stomach before he fired his slinger, but he got one round off. His magic curved his shot through the air, slicing across Dawsey’s head and taking off the top of her skull.

  Both shooters toppled, leaving Nilah standing in the middle of the moaning and half-dead. She whipped her slinger from her suit where she’d tucked it and checked its capacity. It was loaded with inert practice rounds, the kind they used to teach disarming techniques. Dawsey had given her a fake. The Fixers had betrayed her.

  All thoughts of calling for help from the police fled Nilah’s mind. If the Fixers couldn’t be trusted, local cops were out of the question.

  She rushed to the side of the fallen man and knelt next to him, showing him her weapon. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  He coughed and sputtered. “Nilah Brio, I’m Agent Goltz. The Fixers … have been compromised.” He touched the circuit on Nilah’s forearm, and she felt his magic key deactivate the system.

  He sputtered blood onto his lips. “If you … If you live through this …”

  His eyes rolled back in his head, and he shuddered with violent spasms. His hands thrashed the air as his chest ceased to rise and fall. By some miracle, he returned his focus to her, locking eyes for one more second.

  “I hope you get a refund,” he croaked.

  Nilah stood, a dead Fixer at her feet, with no clues about an escape route and in a city full of police that would probably shoot her the second they saw her. Her mind reeled for things to say, but she could only form one question.

  “What?”

  Cordell hadn’t left Boots’s apartment all afternoon, and now the night cycle cloaked the station in darkness. Every hour, Boots would make a pass down the street in front of the building, then duck behind the electrical substation to check on her apartment through binoculars. Most of the time, she found Cordell standing out on the front balcony, a red-hot cigarette flaring in frustration.

  It struck her as idiotic of him to stand around outside where he’d obviously be spotted. Maybe he genuinely wanted to talk to her, but that was the problem with other refugees: they always wanted to yammer about the old days. Perhaps he was a distraction, a scarecrow put out so Boots wouldn’t see the real threat. He had plenty of crew still unaccounted for that could make Boots’s life miserable under the right circumstances.

  She thought of the mountain of trouble and restrained a groan. Her arm still wasn’t working quite right since she’d been shot with that paralysis bolt, and her knee throbbed something fierce. Boots hadn’t seen any evidence of Kin, even after canvassing the bazaar, which meant one of the Capricious’s crewmembers had him. She bristled to think of them talking to him. She couldn’t explain it, but the idea of her former captain talking to the simulation embarrassed her. When Kinnard was still alive, there had been a close triad of friendship between Cordell, Kinnard, and Boots.

  If she wanted Kin back, she was going to have to go in there and take him. She shimmied around the corner and checked the contents of her coat pockets. She’d blown what little cash she had on a veritable arsenal of nonlethal measures: sleepers, trip sticks, knock rounds for her slinger, waspspikes, and three blinders. Even though she’d betrayed them, she was still uncomfortable murdering them outright.

  The plan was simple: get Kin, figure out who the crone was (and whether or not she could track Boots across the galaxy), then start a new life far from here. Boots owned a few acres on Hopper’s Hope, purchased after the brief success of her show. The land would be more than enough to start that distilling business she’d always wanted—though she couldn’t afford the gear just yet. If the crone wasn’t a danger, maybe it was time Boots disappeared forever.

  As she pondered this, she spotted an odd sight: a familiar-looking woman clad in stained, mismatched clothes made her way up the street toward Boots with a nasty scowl. The woman looked like she’d dug her clothes out of a trash pile or maybe a donation box. At first, Boots thought it was one of the Capricious’s crew, finally wise to her location. Then she remembered where she’d seen the woman’s face before: the newscasts. This was the wanted race car driver whose face had been plastered all over the skies.

  There was a huge bounty on that woman, Nilah … Brioche or something: several million argents. If Boots collected, she’d definitely be able to afford the distillery equipment then. She couldn’t believe her luck; of all the people on Gantry Station who could’ve been nearby, this golden opportunity happened to come wandering up the street.

  Maybe whatever deity was out there didn’t hate her as much as she thought.
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br />   She decided to play it cool and make a capture attempt when Nilah passed. A quick hit with a trip stick and a jab with the sleeper would sort things out.

  Except, the racer walked straight at Boots. When her target was four meters away, Boots could see her eyes, intent and furious. Red light spilled from under tattered shirtsleeves. Nilah was only a few paces away now, and closing fast.

  Nilah was a hugely popular race car driver with more money than some small colonies, so she couldn’t possibly have business with Boots, right? Almost in answer to that question, Nilah drew a slinger and jammed it up under Boots’s chin.

  “Elizabeth Elsworth?” she hissed.

  “I get confused for her all the time,” said Boots, raising her hands. “Common mistake.”

  Nilah narrowed her eyes. “Do I look like a sodding moron?”

  “Let’s just take it easy with that heater, kid.”

  She dug the barrel into the soft part of Boots’s jawline. “I saw a murder. I crashed my car. I’ve been chased all day, shot at and used as a human shield, so I’ll do whatever I want.” Her eyes locked onto Boots’s, a burning fire in them.

  “Okay. What’s the plan, then?” Boots gently lowered her hands to where she had easy access to the sleeper in her coat. Her index and middle fingers brushed the metal cylinder in her pocket, and she gingerly lifted it into her hand. As close as Nilah was, she’d never see it.

  “I honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead,” she hissed, “but you know something and you’re coming with me … somewhere. Let’s go.”

  Boots fumbled for the button on the sleeper’s long metal tube. It wasn’t a complicated device. Just flip aside the switch guard, press it into the other person, and hit the button. But which side was the business end again? If she looked at it, Nilah would get wise and give her an extra hole or two in her head.

  “Okay, where are we going? You can’t just drag me around like this or the cops are going to be pissed.”

  Nilah sneered. “All right, well … you can start by going to that alley over there. And then … and then we’ll discuss where we’re actually going.”

  It was now or never. Boots jammed the sleeper into Nilah’s skinny rib cage and pressed the button, sending a jolt of pure arcane energy through her body. Nilah’s face froze, agape with surprise, and purple smoke poured from her open mouth. The poor thing couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, and this sleeper was rated for a full-grown heavy infantryman.

  Knee throbbing, Boots eased Nilah’s limp body onto the sidewalk. Nilah looked aggressively satisfied, like she’d been hunting a nap, wrestled that nap to the ground, and torn out its throat. Too bad that wouldn’t last. When she woke up, she’d have one hell of a headache and her whole mouth would taste like she’d been chewing charcoal, but she’d live.

  Boots straightened up and admired her handiwork. Nilah’s bounty would bring in more than enough argents to get off this tub.

  “Hey, Boots!”

  She spun to see who’d called her name: Orna Sokol, quartermaster on the Capricious … and the two barrels of her massive shotgun. Boots had just enough time to brace before a double dose of knock rounds put her off her feet and far away from consciousness.

  Chapter Four

  Capricious Fate

  Boots awoke to the thrum of a starship and stinging pain across her face. She reached up to touch her cheek and found a gash, still sticky with blood. She creaked open one eye, only to have the bright lights overhead burn into her retina. She swore and rubbed her eyelids, trying to adjust. At least her arm worked okay.

  She wasn’t on Gantry Station anymore. Real spacers could always tell when they’d been moved to a smaller craft because the artificial gravity was a little too crisp, like she was being sucked to the ground. She ran her fingers over the floor, noting the diamond deck pattern.

  “Oh no.”

  A pair of shield casters stretched a tangerine force field across the opening of a small prison cell. Sitting up, she blinked until the corridor outside the cell came into focus, and swore.

  Painted across the far wall in a drunken hand were the words:

  WELCOME ABOARD THE CAPRICIOUS!

  Boots had scrawled those words over twenty-two years ago at the start of the Famine War, during her first day on board the ship. The Capricious had been assigned to take out a Kandamili troop transport that was operating undercover as a cruise liner in the Arcan stratosphere. Once they got to the liner, it contained its running crew, but no passengers, and certainly no soldiers. Cordell still captured the ship’s staff and put them in the brig. His orders to Boots had been, “Make the civvies feel welcome.”

  The cell contained a bunk, a sink, and a toilet. The beds slid into the wall if need be, so the area could be converted to extra storage. She stood, gingerly pushing past the top bunk so she didn’t bump her throbbing skull. Her knee complained, but at least she could put weight on it. Unsteadily, she made her way to the force field to check it out. Once, during the war, they’d captured a cadre of assassins; one of them had escaped and killed one of her crew mates. After that, folks onboard the Capricious did a better job with the security holes.

  She looked back to the bunks and found the sleeping form of Nilah on top.

  “You!” Boots cried, anger burbling through all the burst pipes in her brain.

  Nilah shivered, a tank top barely covering her unblemished brown skin. “God, no. Too shouty. Much too shouty.” She rubbed her hands over her biceps and a set of ocean wave dermaluxes came to life, a deep red light flowing from them. Boots could never remember the color codes for those stupid tattoos, nor could she understand why kids these days wanted to display their emotions to anyone who’d look. She thought it meant Nilah was in pain—good.

  “No. You got us into this, so you’re going to get up.” Boots stormed over to the top bunk, put both hands on it, and shoved it into the wall compartment, scraping Nilah from her bed. The racer bounced off the frame of the lower bunk and onto the floor.

  Nilah’s eyes danced with murder and the tattoos flared orange. “How dare you?” Arms flickering, she surged to her feet and delivered Boots a savage uppercut, sending her reeling to catch herself on the sink.

  Dazed, Boots tried to puzzle through how a tiny woman had landed such an explosive punch.

  Boots’s opponent loomed over her, dermaluxes coruscating with menace. Nilah started to open her mouth, but then licked her teeth and grimaced. A bit of purple drool seeped out from the corner of her lips, and the dermaluxes flashed deep forest green. Nilah then unceremoniously vomited purple goop all over the brig floor.

  The overwhelming stench nearly cost Boots her lunch, but this wasn’t her first rodeo. Back in the war, she’d been on brig duty a few times, and that occasionally meant blood, piss, vomit, and worse. Enemy combatants were rarely good guests, but someone had to clean up after them. Nilah ran out of food and began dry heaving into the diamond deck, tendrils of spittle connecting her to the floor.

  Boots was infinitely thankful for the grating in the center of the floor, which took in most of the contents of Nilah’s stomach. The last thing they needed was her puke getting on the force field, where it might cook. Boots ran a bit of cold water from the sink in the corner and washed the blood from her mouth, which made her present circumstance marginally more tolerable.

  “Okay, kid,” grunted Boots. “You’re going to have to get a hold of yourself if you ever want to stand back up. Those sleepers aren’t a joke.”

  “Sod off.”

  “We’re trapped here in a bucket of your stomach stew, so I promise you, I’m suffering, too.”

  Nilah attempted to wither Boots with a look, but gave up on the cause. “Where are we?”

  “The Capricious. It’s a stolen Arcan marauder from Clarkesfall. Went missing after the Famine War.”

  “That’s … specific. And how do you know this?”

  “I used to serve in the Arcan Defense Force. This was my ship.”

&nb
sp; “You’re a soldier.”

  “Was. My country lost the war. Then the whole planet died.”

  “Well, Boots, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to negotiate my release, and then I’ll have you lot arrested, where you will explain to the police what you know of the murder of Cyril Clowe. Then, while you’re in prison, I’m going to sue you and everything you love back into the Stone Age.”

  Boots laughed. “And what are you going to get from me? I’m worthless.”

  “I could have your ship.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t want it, honey. Besides, this isn’t my ship. In case you didn’t notice, we’re in here together.”

  “Ah.” Nilah glanced about and took a dry swallow. “I see.”

  Boots stepped away from the sink. “Come on, kid. Get some of this water and you’ll feel better.”

  Nilah stumbled upright and hobbled to the sink, eyeing Boots suspiciously the whole way. It amazed Boots that this champion race car driver, this fierce fighter, could make a face so like a whiny brat. Nilah gingerly sipped from the faucet, but once the cool water passed her throat, she began to lap hungrily at the spigot.

  “Thirsty one, aren’t you?”

  Nilah straightened with a deeply satisfied gasp. “You don’t understand. I was in a race when this all started. I’m light on water. We lose up to two kilos of water over the fifty laps.”

  “Wow. That’s a great story, and highly relevant.”

  “You asked why I was thirsty.”

  “Since you like to answer questions, why is there a huge bounty on your head?”

  She lifted her nose, conjuring what nobility she could. “Probably because they want me returned soon.”

  “Is that why they don’t care whether you’re brought in dead or alive?”

  “What?”

  Boots laughed and patted Nilah’s shoulder as she lumbered to the bottom bunk. “Not really. Just wanted to see the look on your face.”