A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe

by Alex White

  He crossed his arms. “I’m starting to come around to your way of thinking on that. I’ve been inundated with calls since I informed the planetary security forces of your arrival.”

  “You what?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t look at me like that. I kept it classified at the highest levels, so that only the heads of the great families know you’re here.”

  Several soldiers in tan uniforms bustled into the room behind Nilah and Orna, their faces drawn and urgent. Nilah recognized them as Flamekeepers she’d seen on the way to the baths. The duke scowled at the interruption, and she could see that he’d become exasperated with all of the goings-on. The lead Flamekeeper, a bald fellow with striking brown eyes, stiffened under Vayle’s gaze and saluted.

  “Sir, we’re here to arrest these two,” he barked, pointing at Nilah and Orna. “Please stand clear.”

  “Hold on,” said Vayle. “On what grounds?”

  “Espionage and heresy,” said the Flamekeeper. “They were spotted infiltrating your vaults and stealing from the royal family.”

  Vayle gave Nilah an ashen look of betrayal, and outrage bubbled over in her.

  “Oh really?” shouted Nilah. “Do you have any bloody cameras on these vaults of yours? You’re a liar!”

  “You will be quiet,” said the Flamekeeper, stepping closer, hand on the pommel of his sword. “The duke will not suffer a heretic to speak!”

  “You think we’d steal from you when we’re staying with you?” asked Orna.

  “Heresy and theft …” said the duke. “From you of all people, Nilah?”

  “Vayle, please!” said Nilah, looking to him with pleading eyes. “I know these are your men, but something is wrong! Don’t send me away without checking the cameras. You owe it to yourself.”

  “Do not make demands of the duke,” said the Flamekeeper. “Sir, I must advise against reviewing the evidence in the presence of the accused. Her lawyers—”

  “She’s right,” said Vayle, sitting down at his desk and folding his hands. “I want to see for myself.”

  Maybe it was because Nilah didn’t trust anyone. Maybe it was because she felt the presence of a spell building. Or maybe it was because she saw the man’s face harden in the split second before he cast. Either way, Nilah understood the onrushing betrayal, and her racer’s instincts kicked in.

  The Flamekeeper cast his glyph, lightning-fast, and seized hold of it like a ball before flinging it at Nilah. She jumped and shoved Orna out of its path, slamming both of them onto the hard marble. The ball struck Vayle’s desk, and she heard the duke screaming amid licking flames. Nilah rolled and saw the pack of Flamekeepers, each tracing glyphs while looking at her with murder in their eyes.

  “Go! Go! Go!” she cried, yanking a dazed Orna to her feet.

  They dashed in the direction of the matriarch statue as the sizzle of completed spells filled the air. Both women barely managed to skid behind the bronze base before the whole world seemed to catch fire around them. Years of racing safety had taught Nilah something important for this day: if she was ever trapped in flames, she had to hold her breath. Her hand shot to Orna’s nose and mouth, and they backed up against the burning-hot pedestal to shield themselves from the crashing waves of fire.

  When her bare skin touched the bronze, it burned, but Nilah felt the presence of an arcane machine within. Her mechanist’s senses described the system’s purpose to her in fuzzy details, and she forced herself to stay in contact with the hot metal. The statues were dispersers—and someone had switched them off.

  Nilah traced a glyph and slapped her free palm against the pedestal, fighting through the pain to link with the machine and search for its activation. Security was light, probably because no one expected a physical hacker in the duke’s inner sanctum. With all of her concentration, she was able to switch on the dispersers.

  The bass thud of arcane waveforms filled her ears, and things got a lot colder as the raging inferno popped out of existence. Nilah thanked her maker that these dispersers worked better than the ones at the track, overloading any exposed glyphs they could find. She hazarded a glance at Vayle’s desk, but given the blackened scorch marks all over it, he was certainly dead, his beautiful body burned to a crisp.

  At least they couldn’t cast anymore, and the dispersers would knock down any slinger bolts, too. It’d be hand to hand from here on out, and Nilah had full confidence that she and Orna could punch their way out of the room.

  Drawing swords sliced the silence that followed, and Nilah swallowed hard. Oh right. They have swords.

  The rumble of high-caliber slingers echoed from the open doorway to the office.

  “Ranger is trying to get to us, but he’s taking fire,” Orna whispered. “I’m going to remote pilot him. You keep them busy while I concentrate.”

  “I thought you could operate him and fight at the same time!”

  “You might be surprised to find out the palace guard is pretty good. They’ve got him pinned, and we need him to escape. Now get out there.”

  “Do you see a sword in my hand?”

  Orna winked. “You said Flicker was unbeatable. I had no idea you were such a chicken.”

  Nilah clambered to her feet, where she could peek around the column and see six Flamekeepers leering at her. “This conversation isn’t over.”

  “Make sure you survive to finish it, then,” Orna chuckled.

  Nilah shook her head. Why did she always like the crazy ones?

  She kept her hands visible as she crossed into the room, all swords pointed at her. There were two women and four men, each one equipped with particularly nasty-looking Carrétan heavy sabers. Vayle’s body had begun to stink up the room, and she tried not to focus on the smell. “All right, boys and girls, here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to hurt you—a lot—unless you turn around and walk every one of those hideous uniforms of yours out of here.”

  The leader glanced at his companions, and they began to laugh.

  She rolled back her sleeves, exposing her dermaluxes, which began to flash in time with her bouncing stance. She pointed to the man at the front of the vanguard. “You. Come here and get broken.”

  The leader charged her, unmasked murder in his eyes as he swiped his sword at her. She ducked under the deadly crescent, and in a single swift movement, she took him by the throat and slammed him neck-first into the marble. His sword went skidding across the stone, and for good measure, she straddled him and gave him three swift blows across the nose, snapping it.

  When she stood, his blood dripping from her knuckles, and smiled at the others, the mirth melted from their expressions. It would be all business from here on out. They dashed in after her, and it took all of her speed and reflexes to keep them corralled to one side. Provided that they only attacked from one direction, she could dodge and weave, and their strikes would get tangled. If they managed to flank her at any point, though, it would all be over.

  Her Flicker master had tested her against multiple opponents in the studio, but never anything like this. The Flamekeepers were swift, driven, and vicious, and she only gave ground. With the momentum against her in the face of myriad flashing swords, she couldn’t find the room or time to strike back, and they would have her cornered in no time. A forceful lunge brought one Flamekeeper too close, and Nilah snapped a jab into the woman’s chin. The punch was weak, off-balance, and utterly ineffective. Nilah took another step back, and her heel touched a column. The Flamekeepers quickly responded by closing ranks around her and leveling swords to skewer her.

  Nilah rushed toward them, ramping her dermaluxes to blinding intensity and juking past the tips of blades. She latched onto the pommel of the nearest man’s sword, twisting it in his grasp while fanning her arm to distract the others. When he didn’t want to let go, she struck his eyes with stiffened fingers and drove her knee into his groin.

  Taking his sword, she swiped wildly to open up some space, but the others easily riposted the attacks. She w
asn’t trained in the art of the blade, and they obviously were. She danced around the other columns, leading her attackers and trying to keep them to one side as best she could.

  A stroke of luck took a blond man off balance, and Nilah knocked aside his blade before palm-striking him in the dead center of his throat. He reeled back, sputtering, and she saw an opportunity to drive the blade into his heart.

  She’d never killed anyone, though.

  In the moment’s hesitation, another woman planted her boot into Nilah’s back and sent her sprawling to the floor. She went down hard, her saber spiraling away across the marble. The Flamekeepers lunged for her, inexorable death closing in.

  In a whirl of screeching teeth and claws, Ranger blasted through a wall and into the melee. Nilah took the opportunity to get clear, glancing back as the chaos unfolded. Ranger sliced into two of the tan uniforms with his talons, then snatched another one by the head, smashing it into the nearby column. Their blades clanked harmlessly off his armor, and Ranger seized their swords, shattering them with his fist. He cut throats. He snapped necks. And as the last Flamekeeper tried to crawl away, Ranger leapt onto her and tore her to ribbons.

  When the dust settled, not a single tan uniform remained unsullied by crimson. The beast stood in the center of the carnage he’d wrought, servos hissing and fingers flexing.

  Nilah blinked and checked herself for wounds; no punctures, no blood on her, nothing except a mild burn. Orna emerged from her hiding place, checking her circlet to make sure it was still tight around her head.

  “Oh, my god …” Nilah breathed.

  Orna dusted her hands, and Ranger followed suit, flicking away the blood of his prey.

  “The next time you get a chance to kill a killer,” said Orna, gently taking Nilah by the shoulders, “you drive that blade in deep, understand? End them.”

  Nilah nodded, shaken. “Okay.”

  Orna clapped her on the shoulder. “You’re okay. Dust yourself off and let’s call the Capricious and let them know there’s a problem. They might not get a warm welcome from the palace guard after what’s happened.”

  “It’s worse than that. Those dispersers … someone had deactivated them. Someone in the palace guard might be in on this.”

  As if on cue, a series of klaxons sounded, followed by a general announcement: “Thiollier Palace is under attack. Repeat. Thiollier Palace is under attack. Apprehend Nilah Brio, Orna Sokol, and Malik Jan. Use of deadly force is authorized.” Flashing lights dropped from the ceiling, painting the ornate palace a shade of vermilion.

  “We’ve got to warn the ship,” said Orna, sprinting over to guard the door alongside Ranger.

  Nilah made her way to Vayle’s smoldering chair and gently pushed his corpse away with her foot. She wiped the crystalline surface free of soot and tapped in the Capricious’s comm code.

  Cordell’s harried voice came over the other side of the line. “Duke, I don’t know if you’re in on this, but so help me—”

  “This is Nilah. Duke Thiollier is dead,” she cut in. “And we’re under attack. You need to get us out of here.”

  An explosion crackled across Cordell’s transmission. “Interesting. And tricky,” he grunted. “You’re going to have to hold that thought a moment.” He barked some orders to Armin and Aisha before returning. “We’re kind of under attack now ourselves. The airspace over Thiollier Palace is a death trap. If we try to go in there, only bits of us are coming to your rescue. We can’t extract you from your location.”

  Nilah’s heart jumped into her throat. “You can’t rescue us?”

  “I’m sorry. Not unless you can get some distance.” Another explosion. “Damn it, I just fixed this thing!”

  Nilah pressed a button on the desk, and a glass rod the length of her palm emerged from a recess. She held it to her ear. “Captain, track on this comm unit. I think we can get clear within fifteen minutes.”

  “All right. We’re loitering. Get my crew out of there, and I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

  Nilah pocketed the comm crystal. She wasn’t a professional spy, but even she knew that the Capricious wouldn’t be the only one tracking her with it. The duke’s murderers would be on them every step of the way. But she’d have to deal with that later. She jogged to Orna.

  “The captain can’t pick us up from here,” Nilah said. “We’re going to have to get clear of the palace.”

  “Steal a flyer? That could be fun.” A spell ricocheted off the wall next to Orna’s head, and Ranger loped down the hall in its direction.

  “Cordell said the airspace was locked down.”

  Screams rang out from Ranger’s direction. Orna cocked her head. “What do you want to do then? Surrender? Doesn’t seem wise.”

  Nilah smiled. “Vayle was a rich race fan. And what do rich race fans have?”

  Orna nodded, catching her idea. “Fast cars. Let’s get Malik and get the hell out of here.”

  When Nilah and Orna reached Malik’s hallway, they found no blood or gore, but a pile of clean bodies outside his door. The men and women there had dropped like sacks of bricks, weapons strewn across the floor, and there wasn’t a single spell’s scorch mark to be found. Whatever had killed these soldiers had been swift and surgical.

  Then Nilah heard one of them snore.

  Upon closer inspection, each and every soldier was merely unconscious, their chests rising and falling with slow, peaceful breaths. Nilah, Orna, and Ranger stepped over the slumbering killers, gingerly approaching Malik’s open doorway.

  “Malik,” hissed Nilah when they got close enough. “Don’t shoot us.”

  The doctor came striding out of his room, dressed and clean, as though he’d just been preparing to depart for an evening on the town. He adjusted his cuffs and inspected the trio, his eyes lingering overlong on Ranger’s bloody carapace.

  “Good,” he said, his face impassive, “you’ve arrived.”

  “What did you do to them?” asked Nilah, her voice a whisper.

  “What’s it look like?” said Orna. “He’s a sleep mage.”

  “It’s true,” he said. “Undisturbed, they won’t wake for a few hours. The alarms provide a constant noise pattern, so they’ll sleep through them.”

  Nilah watched in astonishment as one of the soldiers snuggled up to another, nuzzling into the crook of his neck.

  Malik shrugged. “I thought it was best not to kill anyone, given the political ramifications. I see you’ve taken a different approach.”

  Ranger unholstered his large-caliber slinger and took aim at a sleeper’s head.

  The fury in Orna’s eyes could’ve melted steel. “Didier is dead. These men tried to slaughter us. Maybe a little killing makes a lot of sense.”

  “I know. The captain called me before he called you,” said Malik. “Save your ammunition. There’ll be plenty of people to shoot between us and our escape.”

  “A nap is getting off too lightly,” she growled.

  “I agree, but we’re better than them. Let’s get to the gardens and call for pickup.”

  Orna nodded at Ranger, who put the slinger back. “We can’t. Palace airspace is too hot, but Nilah has a plan that takes us to the garage.”

  “Interesting. Lead on,” he replied.

  The grand galleries and sprawling corridors of Duke Thiollier’s palace offered dozens of hiding places for aggressors, and swift death awaited the band of fugitives around every corner. With Malik’s help, however, they were able to remain largely undetected. If a guard stood in their way, Malik would draw his murmuring purple glyph and hurl the spell into the sentry, who would collapse under the weight of his own exhaustion.

  Outside the garage, however, they encountered a patrol of six men, all armed and alert. Nilah recognized the pink glow emanating from the tips of their rifle barrels: expensive homing fléchettes. It took her a moment to realize that those darts would be coated in a deadly neurotoxin.

  Nilah’s two companions exchanged a series of comple
x hand signals, and Nilah stopped them. “I don’t know your bloody gestures,” she whispered. “What’s my part in this?”

  “Nothing,” said Orna. “Hang back, and we’ll handle it.”

  Malik nodded his assent.

  “Hold on, hold on,” said Nilah, glancing around. “I am not going to simply sit here while you two trot off to play hero. I’m not useless.”

  “We don’t think that,” said Malik, “but we’ve got to protect you because you’re the most important person here.”

  Ranger’s armor quietly popped and hissed, opening to reveal the operator’s seat. Nilah’s eyes darted to the armor’s soft, rubberized chinks—the joints, the neck, anywhere a flechette might worm into his interior.

  “The most important?” Nilah began.

  Orna smirked as she stepped backward into Ranger. “You’re the driver, dumbass. Malik, you ready?”

  “Try to keep them grouped up,” he replied.

  Ranger sealed Orna inside and sunk into a low, catlike crouch before bolting into the open garage antechamber. The guards’ cries of alarm were stifled by dozens of automatic pops from their slingers. Nilah had been right: they were hybrid slingers, firing projectiles coated in spells to home in on Orna’s suit. Pink streaks filled the cavernous space like swarming bumblebees, clanking off Orna’s suit as she bounded from floor, to wall, to ceiling, then dropped down, leaving jagged claw marks in her wake.

  Orna didn’t shoot at them, she only defended herself as best she could, though Nilah could spot several glistening fléchettes embedded in Ranger’s soft parts. A single prick from any one of them on Orna’s exposed arms could mean her demise. Nilah racked her brain for any way to help, but given the swarm of dancing pink death, she couldn’t charge into the room. A large spell hissed beside her, and Nilah turned to find Malik mid-cast, his purple glyph at least a meter wide.

  Nilah could finally see Malik’s age with his face distorted in exertion. The glyph clearly taxed his stamina, but he carried on with the inscription, bringing the last ligature to a close. The spell snapped to life, then collapsed into a strobing ball of energy. He shooed her out of the way, pushing the flashing magic into the group of guards before ducking back behind the corner.