A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe

by Alex White

  She drew her slinger and checked her ammo: discus rounds.

  Didier frowned. “Who are you going to shoot? There’s no one home, man!”

  “No one alive, you mean,” Boots growled, edging toward the nearest dome.

  Didier put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Yeah. So my question stands. There’s no one to shoot. Even if it’s wall-to-wall dead bodies, you don’t need to blow them away. Dig?”

  “What about bots?”

  “Oh yeah,” he sighed, drawing his own slinger.

  Boots spied the telltale purple glow of overloader spells in the chamber of Didier’s gun and shook her head. “Those don’t work on bots. Can’t stun something without a brain.”

  “It’s all I’ve got.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  He grimaced, his mustache going lopsided with the motion. “I’ve never killed anyone. Wasn’t about to start.”

  “We’re an away team, Didier! Away teams shoot stuff!”

  “And when they’re done, I can cook them a nice meal.”

  “You didn’t think to bring some utility rounds like knocks or rebounds or … something?”

  He shrugged. “Then I might accidentally shoot someone.”

  Boots’s eyes stung in the chill air from going so wide. “Exactly why are you on my mission?”

  “I’m not. You’re on my mission. The captain didn’t trust you to carry the money, so you’re just here to guard me while we buy what’s left of this guy’s stuff.”

  Boots rested her hands on her knees, the frigid metal of her slinger’s grip digging into her leg. She couldn’t go charging in there with some rank amateur hoping to shoot up any bots she found. He was just as likely to shoot her as an enemy.

  “Okay,” she sighed. “Wait here.”

  “And do what?”

  “Look pretty,” she called as she tromped off toward the houses. When she glanced back at him, he’d posed stick-straight, one hand smoothing out the sides of his mustache like he was some great thinker. She wanted to call back for him to stand guard, but thought better of it. The last thing she needed was for him to fire off rounds at some gust of wind.

  Boots circled around the tiny installation—a series of six domes with doors all facing a central courtyard. A pillar of tanks, tubes, and antennae stretched skyward from the center of this formation, a shared system for filtration, power, comms, and climate adjustment.

  She headed through the snow to the nearest door and checked the console. Power still flowed through the installation, and it wasn’t locked. Since there probably wasn’t another human for a hundred kilometers, she figured the inhabitants didn’t need to lock up.

  Bracing her back against the wall for cover, she tapped the open button and waited for a trap to go off, or maybe a bot to come storming out. She didn’t know if she hoped to find Jean Prejean’s survivors or an empty house. If they weren’t present, it’d be nigh impossible to track them down. If they were … Didier hadn’t detected any life force.

  The scent of blood told her all she needed to know. She ducked out of cover and peered inside, slinger at the ready. As her eyes adjusted from the blinding snow to utter darkness, dread metastasized in the pit of her stomach.

  Twenty-two years ago, at the Battle of Laconte, the Capricious had gone down hard with no internal gravity to save him. Cordell was a master wizard with shields, so he survived without a problem, but three crew members had been in the cargo bay when the ship rolled. When Boots landed her Midnight Runner and rushed inside, she found her shipmates had been smeared all over the walls by debris and cargo. They were nothing but scattered blood and bone, tumbled away like imperfections on a river stone. Boots tried to shake the image, but it coated her mind.

  Whoever had lived in this room, their blood was now all over it.

  The far wall was splashed with crimson, which slid down in a wide trail before hitting the floor and dripping down some stairs. Boots edged into the room just a hair, checking the corners and keeping her guard high. The room contained a bed, sink, and a toilet—no food preparation of any kind. A faint light reflected up from the bottom of the stairwell, glinting in the syrupy blood.

  She stomped back out of the house and through the waist-high drifts to Didier. “Hey. So about that house …”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why don’t you come in there with me after all?”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “Did you find a bed?”

  Boots started to explain the sight he was about to witness, but her mouth went dry. She smacked her lips together and smiled wanly at him.

  “That bad, huh?” he said, his grin fading. “Why don’t I go in first, so I can—?”

  “No. I’ve got more training. I’ll take point.”

  Together, they stepped into the house. A pile of snow toppled in behind them, wicking up blood as ice became water. Didier swore under his breath before retracing his glyph. Green light glowed over the bloody room.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “I was far away before. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anyone.”

  “And did you?”

  He swept his palms to and fro, scanning the area. “No. And given our current surroundings, that’s a good thing, man.”

  She found the lighting panel and tapped it on, but it only confirmed the grisly details. Boots focused more on the contents of the room, ignoring whatever had happened here.

  It was scarcely a home in the traditional sense. Yes, it was a well-insulated shelter, and it had a place to rest and clean, but there were no images on the wall, no holoprojection lenses, and no personal effects. Even the bed was perfectly made, as though no one had been horribly murdered nearby. If this was where Jean Prejean’s widow lived, there had to be some strange reasons for it.

  “Stairs?” she asked.

  Didier nodded. “Stairs.”

  As they crossed the threshold toward the darkness below, Boots inspected the entrance. She noticed a lip around the stairwell, along with a hidden switch behind the nightstand. “Looks like these stairs weren’t meant to be left open like this,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “Hidden switch.”

  “Neat,” said the cook, focusing his attention on descent.

  There were only about twenty steps through a switchback before they hit the bottom. On the lower landing, they found a blast door, cut from its hinges in large, drippy welds. Acrid dust had settled into the scene, tinging the air with chemical scents. Boots closely examined the welds and found unblemished silver surrounded by carbon scoring.

  She ran her hands over the shiny surface: surprisingly rough. “Fire magic cut this open, or something like it.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t just explosives?”

  “Micro-abrading. When the cutting area gets too hot, the subsurface can’t keep up and causes these little cracks. Chemical explosives don’t get hot enough to do that.”

  Didier smirked. “Where did you learn that?”

  “On the Capricious’s fifth run, a Kandamili fire mage landed on our hull and sliced a hole into it. He depressurized a third of the ship before we knocked him off. Killed two decent folks.”

  His smile melted.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “When we came in for repairs, those entire panels had to be recut, because the welders couldn’t patch it.”

  “I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

  She shrugged. “It also gave me pretty good fodder for a salvage legend a few years later. Treasure hunters love little details like that. Ready?” Boots peered in through the door, but only darkness greeted her.

  Didier reached into his pack and drew out a small lumon flare orb. He touched a glowing finger to its surface, and it responded with brilliant, green light. He then gently tossed it into the empty space beyond. The lumon bounced over a few feet of anti-slip treads before rolling underneath a railing and disappearing. Didier’s finger glowed brighter, and the device popped, leaving thousands of gl
owing motes suspended throughout the room.

  The landing door led to the second-floor balcony of a cavernous archive. Shelf after shelf of inactive data crystals, each the size of Kin, lined the walls. Boots forced herself to blink. The room below had to be as long as a small starship, and if those crystals were full of information, they’d hit some kind of preservation project or military archives.

  The familiar stir of the hunt blossomed in her gut, and her breath quickened. She remembered the exact moment, long ago, she’d seen that derelict starship containing the Chalice of Hana. She remembered Gemma and Stetson, and their forced calm as they docked, camera crews in tow.

  Another one of her legends was true. They really were on the path of the Harrow. What did the stars hold for her this time?

  She stepped through the gaping doorway into the green shadows of the lumon, creeping to the edge of the balcony. Three bodies lay sprawled across the floor of the massive data gallery, each riddled with slinger wounds. Given the extent of slicing damage and the destroyed concrete floor behind them, they’d been shot with discus rounds.

  An array of hallways branched off the mezzanine balconies, each one with a vault door scorched to pieces. She pointed them out to Didier.

  “Ten to one those go up to the other houses in the area.”

  “What do you think we’d find there?” he asked.

  “More bodies.”

  From her new vantage point she could see the central control array, or what was left of it. It had been washed in a sea of fire, mostly melted away into slag. Data crystals littered the floor, having been blown from their sockets by concussion spells or conventional arms.

  “Whatever went down here, it happened fast,” Boots breathed.

  Didier joined her at the railing. “Oh yeah?”

  She pointed to the corpses. “All outside of cover. They’re unarmed.”

  “They could’ve surrendered and been executed.”

  From the way the floor had been destroyed behind them, Boots knew the shooter had been standing exactly where she was. “Doubtful. The killer or killers came in through the house above. Tore that person up, then came down here and started blasting. That’s why they needed a fire mage—so they could slice through the blast door in under a second.”

  “What do you make of the melted console?”

  “They came to bury the information contained here. Which means it’s going to be tough to get at whatever is left. This sucks.”

  Didier scratched his nose. “Yeah. Those people were murdered, man. Poor bastards.”

  She’d actually been talking about the fact that most of the info here was likely destroyed, but she kept her mouth shut. She’d been leading people to garbage and lies for so long, and now that she was standing at the precipice of a real-life legend, someone had melted most of it.

  “You want to cast your spell again?” she asked as they searched for some stairs to the lower level.

  “Nah. Getting tired. Besides, I did find life in here, it just wasn’t human.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t freak out. I just found some microbes, bacteria, that kind of stuff. Just because those folks are dead, that doesn’t mean everything is. I was really hoping there was some spoiled food down here and not a pile of corpses.”

  She sighed. “See, I was hoping for a warm welcome from an old woman, milk and cookies, and a bit of intel.”

  “I could’ve brought us food from the ship.”

  “Do you take everything literally?”

  They descended to the lower level, where the stench of death mingled with burned electronics. She tried to keep her mind on the buttery flavor of warm cookie dough and the cool cream of milk. “Besides, everyone knows cookies are better when an octogenarian makes them.”

  Didier glanced back the way they came, ignoring her comment. “If they meant to destroy this place, why not blow it up?”

  “Maybe the plume would draw too much attention, even out here. Or maybe …” They reached a bottleneck in the path, and she placed a hand to Didier’s chest, stopping him in his tracks. “They wanted to leave enough data cubes intact to distract anyone who came after.”

  She pointed to the corner, where a lens glinted, mostly obscured by rubble. The pile of broken stone didn’t look quite right, as though someone had heaped it over the lens after breaking the rocks apart. There was another, much larger pile behind it, and Boots knew exactly what she’d find under those stones.

  “Springfly,” she whispered.

  “Here?”

  In Clarkesfall ground operations, a springfly was the worst thing that could happen to a squad. Both sides loved them. The trigger lens could detect life, friend or foe, at range, and it could be hidden almost anywhere. When an enemy crossed its sight, a winged bot with scything arms and blinding speed would burst forth from a concealed case and perforate anything it could find. The flies could stay dormant for months or even years, and once operational, would continue to hunt their prey for weeks, provided they hadn’t butchered everyone in under a second. They were deadlier than land mines and smarter than most marines, and the ruins of Arca were littered with them.

  Boots followed the gaze of the lens; it was focused on the half-melted console in the center of the room. Whoever had planned the ambush was smart: lure everyone down to a choke point, then release a hunter in case someone escaped. It wouldn’t matter if Boots had brought a squad of twenty meatheads strapped for action; that bot would finish them all in under ten seconds.

  “Crap. There are a ton of intact cubes here. I bet we can actually get something out of the remains of that console if we can hook up Kin.”

  “Okay, so we shoot the lens, right?” asked Didier, gripping his slinger tightly.

  “One: no we do not … not yet. And two: take your finger off the trigger. You’re going to accidentally discharge. Any weapons fire will launch that springfly, and that’s not how I want to die.”

  He did as she asked, donning a noble accent. “I assure you, madam, all my discharges are purposeful.”

  Boots scrutinized the second pile: one hid the lens trigger, the other hid the launcher box. “Here’s the plan: on the count of three, you’re going to shoot the lens with one of those overloader rounds, and I’ll blast the bot after it launches. If it shoots straight up, I’ll get a clean shot on it. The discus should tear it clean in half.”

  “What if it doesn’t?”

  “I’ll have less than a quarter of a second to try again.”

  “Can we just sneak around the lens and get at the console?”

  Boots shook her head. “That lens has a wide field of view. We’re lucky it didn’t catch us already. So you think you can do this?”

  Didier scratched an eyebrow. “Or we could leave. We might not get anything out of that terminal, and nothing chops our heads off if we split.”

  “You make it a point to lie to your captain?”

  “Only if he asks me to do something dumb.”

  Well, he couldn’t be perfect, now could he? Boots grabbed him by the chin and planted a hard kiss on his lips, pulling away before he could slip her the tongue. “Brave boys are the only ones worth knowing. Should I give a damn about you?”

  Didier smacked his lips. “I’ve got to admit, I expected that to play out a little differently. Like, not in a room full of mangled corpses.”

  Boots locked back the hammer of her slinger, and it gave off a light hum as it charged. “A kiss could play out in a hotel room if you just take the shot. You need to learn the art of not giving a damn.”

  Didier shrugged. “All right.”

  Without warning, he raised his pistol and thumped the trigger camera with a stunner round, sending dust and shrapnel spiraling into the air. Boots heard the telltale clacking of the springfly box, her eyes desperately sifting the haze for its package. A shower of flashing, blinding sparks burst from the trap in a phosphorescent storm, and she realized to her horror that she couldn’t see the bot th
rough the flares. She blinked back tears and the terrible feeling that the spell had seared her retinas, and put three discuses directly into the center of the cloud. They whined through the air before crashing against the far wall, but she had no way of knowing if they’d struck home. Her useless eyes would never give her a second chance.

  Boots held her breath for a full five seconds, waiting to feel the slice of a springfly’s blade across her neck. A mechanical clinking filled the gallery. Her trachea remained remarkably intact, and her head was still on her shoulders, so she straightened up. She pawed at her burned skin to see if she’d been hit anywhere.

  “You nailed it, man! Sliced it right in half!”

  She took a wild swing at the air where Didier had been standing. Her heart hammered as she tried once more to sock the bastard, to no avail. She couldn’t see much more than blurs, but she heard his snickering as he ducked away.

  She swung again. “What the hell was that?”

  “You said I shouldn’t give a damn!”

  “There’s a difference between dashing and dumbass!” She finally got a hold of his collar and dragged him in front of her burning eyes. “What were you thinking?”

  “You convinced me to have fun and die young, man.”

  “Have fun, yes. But dying, not so much,” she said, closing her eyes. The pain of it bored into her brain, stealing her breath. “Look, I think I got really hurt back there. Just … let me sit down.”

  Firm, calloused hands wrapped around hers and guided her to the floor. Chopped rocks underneath her butt didn’t exactly make it comfortable, but it was better than staggering through the compound.

  “Can you open your eyes?” asked Didier, his warm breath on her face. “I need to take a look.”

  “How come you can see?”

  “I shut my eyes tight after I took the shot. Didn’t want to see the end coming, man.”

  She laughed in spite of her pain and pried her eyes open to see his blurry visage. “You are seriously a wimp, and an idiot.”