A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe

by Alex White

  It didn’t take long for their company to arrive. The pair of Taitutian marauders blasted through the docking shields into the bay, lights flaring, spewing forth two fire teams of marines. Shieldmasters led the soldiers, their blue discs batting any obstructions out of the way. Disorienting balls of light shot through the bay, dazzling anyone who looked directly at them. The marines flowed through the docking stations like water, rousting the crew of the Capricious with the constant refrain of, “Drop it! Lay face down and interlace your fingers behind your back!”

  The special operations team had stunning efficiency and overwhelming presence. Even if Nilah had been planning to shoot them, the flashing spells and booming voices would’ve made her think twice. A big man wrestled her to the ground and tore the slinger from her hand, planting a knee on her back as he clapped her hands into steel gloves. She would’ve screamed in pain if she could’ve breathed. With the press of a button, the hollow gloves filled with calcifoam, locking her fingers in place.

  Blackness crept toward the center of her vision, and Nilah wondered if he’d caused some internal bleeding. He kept his boot on her until, somewhere in the bay, the squad commander called, “Clear!” and everyone visibly relaxed. Her captor hauled her to her feet by her collar, hoisting her toward the center of the room, and when her legs hit the ground, Nilah wondered how much longer she’d be able to stand.

  “Thanks, babe,” she croaked. “Now I need a doctor.”

  “Keep your mouth shut!” he screamed into her ear, slamming her against the wall alongside her compatriots, and she nearly fainted.

  They hadn’t fared much better, given their injuries. Cordell’s face was locked in a wince—they’d ripped his arm from the cast, reopening his sword wound. Boots’s already bruised nose had a bloody cut across the bridge. Armin’s cheek had an extra blush to it from where they’d banged his head against something. Orna was the only halfway healthy-looking person there, and she sneered at the marines as they pulled weapon after weapon from her.

  “Sir!” called one of the marines, holding out a comm. “Direct communication from the PM. We’re to secure the bay for his landing.”

  The leader of the group, a squat fellow with beady eyes, spun on his subordinate. “Negative. Advise Minister Mandell that we’ve not yet swept for explosive devices or magical traps. What’s his ETA?”

  “Not sure. Let me check.”

  But he didn’t have time. Wind whipped at Nilah’s face as Dwight’s sleek, silver yacht came barreling through the docking shield to land at one of the open platforms. Landing pincers gripped the clamps as impulse thrusters popped across the hull, and the ship’s engines sighed, powering down.

  “Guard the prisoners. Hansen, take your folks and secure every entrance to this place,” called the squad commander, pointing out two of his fellows. “You and you, with me.” He then jogged away toward the yacht, two of his marines trailing behind.

  “Continue facing the wall! Do not look at me!” shouted the new woman in charge, and Nilah could feel the aim of the slingers on her back like a hot ray of sun. She kept as still as she could, not eager to be executed by a pack of goons.

  Then she heard it—the baritone of Dwight Mandell’s voice. Bittersweet feelings raced through her—anger for his betrayal, nostalgia, longing, and loss. She couldn’t see him, only the metal wall plate pressed to her cheek, and was glad of it. She didn’t want him witnessing the look on her face.

  “Well now,” rumbled Dwight, his voice full like an opera singer’s. It wasn’t hard to see how he’d been elected, even without his magic. “What a sorry sight we have here. Couldn’t even bother to raid the crew lockers for some new clothes?”

  “Sir,” said the woman holding them hostage, “we seized these weapons, and—”

  The bass thump of Dwight’s glyph sapped the strength from Nilah’s knees. A sunny yellow light washed over the bay, warming them, reminding Nilah of everything she ever loved about Dwight. His kind smile, the crow’s-feet on his otherwise smooth face, the regal stature of his posture, the salt and pepper of his beard. He’d held her on his lap when he was just a senator, and how had she repaid him? By ignoring his pleas for her to come home; by skulking around the galaxy, undermining his machinations.

  He believed the galaxy deserved to die. Who was she to question a god?

  Despite the guard’s orders, she turned to face Dwight Mandell—the absolute, the inevitable. His smoking glyph hovered in the air, easily four meters across—far beyond his armspan. He hadn’t traced it, then; it must’ve appeared spontaneously in response to his perfection. To see him was to see destiny. To hear him was to hear fate. Compared with Dwight, other charmers were paltry scribblers, only able to exert minor influence on others. She completely, unreservedly loved him, and the majesty of that knowledge thrilled her heart. How had she been allowed to touch him all those years ago, to play in his gardens when she wasn’t fit to serve him? Her body felt so cold now at the remembrance of his loving, familial embrace. She glanced at the other crew of the Capricious; they, too, were thunderstruck at the foolishness of their plans.

  “Hello, Nilah,” he said, the twin syllables of her name now a treasured memory to her.

  She wept openly at her mistake.

  “There’s no need to cry, dear,” he said, and she nearly choked trying to stifle her sobs.

  “I’m so sorry, sir,” stammered the guard, her slinger shaking in her hand, gaze casting about between Dwight and Nilah. “I … I told her not to move and I didn’t know you knew her, and—”

  “Thank you, Major. I hate that you’re so well-informed,” he said, and the soldier gasped as he placed a hand on her shoulder. “The public can’t know that Nilah Brio and her compatriots brought the Harrow here. No one can be allowed to inspect this ship.”

  She shook her head, tears filling her eyes as well. “Everyone in this bay is cleared at the highest levels, sir. We would never betray your confidences.”

  He reached out and stroked away a tear from the guard’s face. “All magic is fleeting. You’ll one day come to hate me.”

  “I could never!” shouted the guard, biting back a scream.

  Nilah felt such pity for her. Betraying Dwight had placed Nilah in her own personal hell—something she’d never wish on anyone.

  “I think it’s only fitting,” said Dwight, “that you and your soldiers kill yourselves.”

  A split second of slinger fire filled the bay, followed by the sound of two dozen bodies hitting the floor. The silence that followed was a profound testament to the might of a god.

  Then Nilah remembered that they were broadcasting a camera feed, and she wailed in agony, collapsing to the ground in a puddle of tears. Dwight rushed to her undeserving side, comforting her, shushing in her ear, rubbing her shoulders with his warm hands to calm her. She forced herself to regain a measure of composure, because her god required it of her.

  “What is it, child?” he asked. “Don’t cry for them. They died serving me.”

  She only wished that was why she fought her tears. “No,” she sobbed. “I’ve betrayed you again. The ship is broadcasting all of this to the planet. They’ve … seen your glory.”

  A hint of displeasure crossed Dwight’s face, and Nilah wished for one of the soldier’s slingers so that she could end her worthless existence.

  “It is what it is, my dear. You and your crew brought the ship to me, and we’ll take it out of here,” he said.

  Nilah placed her hands to her mouth. “I can’t! We can’t! There are no authorized users! She set you up and locked you out.” With that, Nilah thrust a finger at Boots.

  A scream, and Boots slammed her head against the metal bulkhead so hard she fell unconscious—that wicked trickster, that garbage woman. Of course she was dull-fingered; she was born undeserving of the cardioid. No magi could be so vile, so inferior. Boots had evil in her heart, born into a legacy of hateful malice. She’d trapped Dwight aboard the Harrow, and when Nilah was done serving her g
od, she’d gladly cut Boots’s throat for him.

  How Nilah could’ve befriended such an unworthy creature was beyond her grasp.

  Dwight smiled. Her lord could sense her hatred.

  “Nilah,” he said, and she shivered, “you’re a problem-solver. You can destroy any obstacle that stops us from leaving. Your crew will take me where I need to go.”

  Of course she could. She’d unravel Kin just like she’d unraveled Ranger, just like the springflies. She could atone. She could give him everything he asked, and she felt as though she might take flight with joy. The machines would serve her, and Dwight in turn.

  “One question, my dear,” he said, helping her to her feet.

  “Anything,” she sighed.

  He pointed. “Why have you welded that breastplate to the rafters?”

  Oh god, no.

  Deep in the bowels of the Harrow, far away from the beauty of Dwight Mandell’s glyph, Aisha fired a discus round from her slinger. It struck the piece of Mother’s shoulder pauldron secured to the side of a ventilation shaft, and the round shattered, loosing a single hot shard of energy that traveled up to the mission planning room.

  Nilah leapt at Dwight without warning; there was no time.

  The shard bounced off one of Mother’s greaves and shot through a door, then down a corridor, then across the crew mess, before ricocheting off the inside of Mother’s backplate just outside the bay.

  She clutched Dwight’s head to her bosom, her injuries lighting up like a campfire inside her, but she had to be his shield. She needed to protect him at all costs. His hands flew up to tear her away, and he let out a muffled cry, but she couldn’t let him go.

  She heard its searing report as the shard struck Mother’s breastplate in the docking bay. It slammed into her back as she and Dwight toppled to the ground, and she prayed her body was enough to stop it. They tumbled together, his weight crushing her, until they came to rest a few feet apart. She glanced down at her chest and found blood, frayed fabric, and the sickening white of a cleanly severed rib. Red oozed from her torso, her paltry life given to save true greatness.

  Dwight gurgled and sat upright.

  “No,” she whispered.

  A spray of crimson erupted from his throat, and though he tried to stifle the flow, his strength failed him. He fell onto his back, desperately clutching his neck.

  “No!” she commanded, then she begged over and over. She clambered to his side, suppressing her own agony to get to him. He reached out to her, letting go of his own grievous injury to wrap his fingers around her neck.

  Yes, take me as payment.

  The warmth of his presence began to fade, even as darkness pressed into Nilah’s vision. Reverence became pity. The spell came free of her bones. Pity became horror. She scrabbled at his slick hands, trying to pry them free. Horror became fury. She smashed a fist into his nose. His eyes rolled back in his head, and the last of his lifeblood spluttered to the deck as his hands went slack around her throat.

  As unconsciousness swept in on her, swift and black, Nilah realized that this was how a god dies—

  Like a rabid dog put down.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Finish Line

  Soft sheets, a cool breeze.

  Nilah stirred and felt not a single twinge of pain within her lithe body—though she wasn’t accustomed to feeling so weak. A single pump whispered peacefully beside her bed, its well-tuned mechanism fading into the murmur of water.

  Her eyes creaked open to find a shady room, its ceiling a canopy of swaying palm fronds in the fresh sea air. She raised her head above the cocoon of pillows and clean linens to find billowing curtains, and through them, an impossibly bright emerald sea. She turned the other way to find her father, his dark, full cheeks shining with jeweled tears.

  “Oh, thank god, my Nilah,” he whimpered, running his fingers over her hair. “My little girl. I’m so sorry.”

  “Hi, Dad,” she sighed, then drowsiness oozed into her like a sweet liquor, and she closed her eyes again. “Don’t let them take off the scars on my face, okay? I want those. Don’t …”

  “Okay, baby. We’ll discuss it later.” Her father’s soft touch stroked away layer after layer of consciousness until she melted into dreams.

  When she opened her eyes again, she could swear she saw Malik’s silhouette. She blinked a few times, unsure of how much time had passed. She rubbed away the sleep gunk, trying to get a better look at him, trying to see if this was just a drug-induced hallucination or a dream.

  But his warm smile was altogether real.

  “I hear you’re in the wrong sport, Miss Brio. You should’ve been a ballplayer,” he said, in that silken voice she thought she’d never hear again.

  She smacked her dry lips together and sat up. “Malik, what?”

  He arched an eyebrow and laughed. “The captain told me how you caught me.”

  She rose from the bed and threw her arms around him, squeezing as tightly as she could. “Where are the others?”

  “They’re down a few floors, in the cheap beds,” he said. “That’s where I was until an hour ago. I wanted to see you as soon as I could, so I could thank you for saving my life.”

  “It was nothing,” said Nilah, looking around her projected hospital room, taking in the scent of sand and sea. Then she winked at Malik. “I mean, other than the greatest catch of all time.”

  He gave her a toothy grin. “I see your injuries haven’t changed you. I’m so glad.”

  “Shouldn’t you be getting some rest?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll be sleeping again for days. Now that I’ve gotten the antidote, I intend to stretch my poor legs a bit.”

  Malik stood, smoothing down his trousers. Now that she was more awake, she took in his outfit—linen robes and soft shoes. He looked as though he might head to bed at any second.

  “I have to be getting back,” he said. “Aisha is coming out of surgery soon, and I’d like to pop in.”

  “May I come with you?” she asked, rising from the bed. Her ribs burned, and her eyes watered, but she forced herself to stand up straight. “Maybe I’ve been asleep too long, too.”

  When Boots awoke this time, she found a usurer mage tending to her wounds, his hands the green of a forest as he pulled bruises from her skin on her right arm. He traced bare fingers along her stitches, and they knit together into angry, pink scars. Her left arm killed her, but the right positively vibrated with pleasure from the spell—his expensive spell.

  “Take it easy, Elizabeth,” he said, his voice practiced and courteous, like an actor.

  Boots craned her neck to look behind him. She found a spacious, well-appointed room with a window out onto the Mirror—one of the most famous lakes in the entire galaxy, nestled in Taitu’s capital of Aior. The gravity had the authentic feel of a planet, not synthetic space fakery. The usurer, the view, the furniture—Boots knew a poor woman like her shouldn’t be there.

  “Doc, I can’t afford this.” She sat up despite his protestations, and the sheets fell away, revealing only a hospital gown.

  “Easy, Miss Elsworth. We’re here to help you.”

  It was then she saw the dozens of containers of brown algae beside his feet, their life force drained to repair hers. Biobatteries like those weren’t cheap, and she knew she was already in over her head. A nurse wheeled a cart into the room with a fresh supply of the verdant bio gel, but Boots waved him off.

  “No, no, I’m well enough,” she coughed. “I can’t pay for any of this. So, uh, if you still want to help me, you can help me find my clothes. Let’s settle up and get done here.”

  “Miss Elsworth,” said the doctor, “you can’t leave now. You’re risking a blood infection from your new—”

  “What can I say? I’m a risk taker,” she said, planting her palms on the railing of the bed to let herself down.

  But one of her hands wouldn’t touch. It only clanged.

  “Your medical expenses will be
covered by the state,” protested the doctor, but his words passed by like distant clouds.

  Boots’s left arm wasn’t an arm by any definition she could appreciate. Wires and tubes twisted through pistons and around steel scaffolding before terminating in a graceless manipulator. It encircled the railing in a loose robotic grip, its palm nothing more than the required association of cams and springs. Silicone pads covered the tips of phalanges, and when one of the pads touched the rail, she felt a small electric shock in her shoulder—not painful, just enough to let her know she was touching something.

  It ached. She could see her left arm was missing, but it still throbbed with her racing heart.

  “We’ll … leave you alone,” said the doctor, ushering the nurse out with him.

  Boots thought of Henrick Witts, and his corrupt, withering touch. He’d desiccated her planet, sparked the civil war that took so many of her friends, robbed Orna of her childhood, taken Malik, taken Didier … taken Kin. Henrick had invaded every part of her life; now he’d taken a piece of her body. She might’ve been suicidal once or twice, but she’d always been Boots: plump, short, and magicless, but healthy.

  And now part of her wasn’t Boots.

  She swallowed, the tightness in her throat the only warning of onrushing tears. Her cries came in stuttering sobs.

  She tried to bury her face in her hands by instinct, but the cold metal jarred her out of it. With her good hand, she stroked her cheek and wiped away wetness. She held the other hand at bay, an alien invader. Her eyes followed the steel’s length to her bare shoulder, ringed with itchy, red scars where her body met the prosthesis. She located the clips and gingerly removed the bolts holding her arm in place.

  When she pulled it away, she found only a machined screw as thick as her thumb. She flexed the ball of her shoulder and the screw pin changed orientation, pointing this way and that. Then she threw the arm to the floor without a second thought. With her good hand, she pinched the pin, then gave it a light tug. It felt as though she’d pulled every muscle connected to her shoulder.