Kicking Ashe

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “He’s not exactly a he, at least not in the sense you think of a he.”

  His spirits lifted. “A she?”

  “I think he thinks he’s a he. That’s how he feels to me. But he’s not a man. He’s,” she swallowed, her eyes big in her pale, lavender face, “a computer.” She winced, rubbed her temple. “He doesn’t like to be called that. They call themselves nanites.”

  He blinked. “Nan…ites?” He shook his head, as clarity eluded him. The noise of the feeding bugs did not help.

  “Microscopic computers. Really microscopic. And sentient.”

  He blinked again. “Sentient? As in living?”

  “And thinking. Pain in the as—butt, but not always cause, sometimes they fix the pain in the butt.” She shifted, showing him her back. Tears and dark spots marred the line of her shirt.

  He stepped forward. “I knew you were injured.” He bent, his hands probing the spots and found only smooth flesh. “How is this possible?”

  “Pretty cool, aye?”

  He blinked yet again. What did temperature have to do with this magic?

  “You look a little confused. Lurch says I’m not explaining very well and I guess he’s right because you look confused. And I’m repeating myself.” She rubbed her face. “I’m sorry, I’ve never had to do this. Okay, remember when you said I looked iridescent?”

  He nodded, though it seemed a long time ago. He frowned. If this was the future, then it was a long time ago. His temple gave a pointed throb and he rubbed the spot.

  “That was Lurch doing his thing. See.” She held out her hand. Gave it a shake. “Lurch. This is not the time to be shy.”

  After a short pause, little beads of golden light emerged from her skin. They seemed to hover just above her palm. He leaned in, studied the lights. They appeared real. He tried to touch one and it shifted away from his finger. Sentient? It was amazing, but compared to time waves? Minor amazing. Who knew amazing had majors and minors? He swallowed. “Nanites. Of course.” He nodded, like he understood, though he did not.

  Ashe beamed. “If you’ll let him, he can send in some drones to assess this banged bird.” She patted the craft with her non-glowing hand. “Suss out the problem spots. Maybe even fix some of them.”

  Was this possible? Was he asking that question after all he’d seen? “It would be useful to know if something is wrong before it blows.”

  “If that isn’t a family mantra, I’m making it one.” She looked past him. “Is that one of those cloaking things you used to hide the camp?”

  He dragged his gaze from her hand and the small lights shifting in her palm. Saw the small tower and nodded. Felt a bit slow, like inside the time wave. “Why?”

  “Does this thing have a cloak?” He shook his head. “If there are Zelk out there, a cloak would be nice. Actually, even if they aren’t out there, a cloak is nice. Cause cloaked is always better than not cloaked.” She frowned. “Could be another mantra, but its not quite there is it?”

  “It is not integrated with the craft.” He felt odd and slow and the scraping of the bugs against the hull had intensified, like a thousand nails against metal, making it hard to hear his thoughts.

  “Lurch is great at integrating. It’s his special gift.”

  He nodded, once more pretending he understood. “What is happening out there?”

  “Lurch?” Her eyes widened. “Crap. He says the bugs are eating the hull.”

  The hull was made of a strong alloy.

  “How can you know this—” As it had before, the link reappeared inside his mind. Was this the work of the nanite?

  I also have the ability to wirelessly connect to my drones.

  Lurch?

  Were you expecting another nanite?

  He shook his head, then felt a need to apologize, but there were other, more urgent priorities. “How long until they breach the hull?”

  Her eyes widened even more. “Let’s just say, the sooner we blast our way out of here, the better.”

  Blasted out or blew up. He did not plan to die by bug.

  Indeed.

  EIGHT

  The bugs had developed a rhythm that sounded like the clock ticking in Ashe’s head. Lurch kept a visual of their hull incursions in the corner of her mind’s eye. Shan must see it, too, based on the determined way he pushed aside any issues he might have about having drones in his head and went after readying his little bird.

  Lurch had committed every drone he could spare to the job. Status reports flashed in her head as he found problem systems and tried to fix them. The hull was getting pretty thin when the bird’s hatch finally slid up. She dragged the cloaking tower aboard, then started shifting in the supplies they’d collected, securing them in lockers and transport containers, while Shan reattached sagging panel covers and secured loose wiring, supervised by Lurch, of course. About the time Lurch gave her a head’s up, Ashe saw a bug leg poke through the hull. She headed up the ramp, met Shan coming down. The hole wasn’t big enough for the bug to get in. Yet.

  “I got the important crap on board.” Stuff to eat. Stuff to shoot is what she meant. Weapons out, they backed up the ramp, kept weapons trained on the breach until the hatch sealed.

  “Time to blow this party,” Ashe said. “How close are we to doing that?”

  He and Lurch hesitated. Shan shrugged. Felt like Lurch did, too.

  “We will give it our best shot.”

  “You know how I like shooting.” She grinned. “I’ll see what we can do about the cloak.” Do you have enough drones to connect the cloak?

  I will give it my best shot.

  Ashe wanted to comment on this, but couldn’t. An eye twitching shouldn’t affect speech, but somehow it did.

  As if she’d said something Lurch said, he becomes less and less the man I met.

  And?

  Perhaps more the man he was meant to be.

  Wow, that was a huge concession from the bitter nanite. Strong indicator his life is what we are here to fix?

  It does seem so.

  Which still left her with a time ticket home if they did it, if they got him back to his proper place. If she had been with him in that other reality, the one where they were kissing, why didn’t she remember it? She’d hovered on the edge, or thought she had, but then it had faded, leaving this ache at the center of her chest. She sighed as she breached a panel in the tower, then dragged the wires Lurch had highlighted over and began connecting them. Beneath her, the deck began to hum as Shan brought the engines online. How long would it take the bugs to make a big enough hole to get into the bay?

  As if her thought made it reality, there was a thump against the upper hull, then the scrabbling sound of a bug. Shan could charge the hull. That might get them off, but they needed all they had to get airborne first.

  “Time to go.” Ashe spun to look at Shan. “Where—”

  I suggest aiming for the sector already weakened by the bugs.

  The bird lifted, the hum a bit meh around the edges. Engines running a bit rough.

  “That is an understatement,” Shan said, his eyes on his screens, his hands resting lightly on the controls.

  Ashe blinked. This could get really weird. She thought for a moment. Okay, already in weird. What’s beyond weird?

  I believe they call it a FUBAR.

  “Do you want me on weapons?” Ashe asked, with a fair bit of hope. Shooting their way clear and killing bugs was double the fun.

  “I believe I can handle it.”

  She felt the bird swing around. Sensed tension from Shan and Lurch. She got it. Shan’s big bird was damaged in ways they couldn’t assess. This shot could weaken the hull in the wrong spot and topple the upper ship down on them, trapping them in the bay for bug lunch.

  More thuds on the upper hull.

  Ashe made herself focus on the connections, not the bugs possibly weakening the bird’s structural integrity. The ship’s vibration messed her aim. Not because her hand was shaking or anything.

&
nbsp; The bird jerked, the recoil and impact sent them skidding back into the hull. Shan throttled up, engaged the lift. Fired again. Less recoil, though the blast hit their shields hard.

  Shields down thirty percent.

  Thanks to Lurch she saw what Shan saw. The hull breach could be large enough. Might not be. Above it, the bridge began to bend toward them. Shan put the pedal to the metal. Bird shot forward. Metal shrieked right to the roots of her teeth. Thrust threw her backwards. Again.

  She slid into the hatch. Half expected it to pop open. Lucky for her it held as they burst clear of his ship.

  Exterior video recorded the bridge collapsing down on the breach. It was quickly engulfed in bugs.

  There are still bugs clinging to the hull.

  “Take the pilots seat,” Shan said. “Ground yourself and I’ll flash the hull.”

  Ashe scrambled up and into the seat.

  “Cover your eyes.”

  She did. Still felt the flash, felt it stab into her pupils.

  Hull is clear of bugs.

  Finally some good news—

  Incoming fire.

  Or not.

  “We need that cloak.” Shan sounded terse, but that was probably because he had to execute evasive maneuvers. That would make anyone terse.

  Ashe made the mistake of getting up right when he made a sharp turn. Sailed to the cloak tower, got a bit wrapped around it.

  Don’t mind me. Just because all my drones are off connecting crap. I’m fine. Really.

  She unwrapped herself. Braced. Made the last connections as the incoming exploded off their six. Try it now.

  Cloak is engaging.

  The explosion was off their port this time. Close enough to send Ashe tumbling again. Some supplies with her.

  Cloak is off line.

  Ashe crawled back to the tower. Started reattaching wires.

  “Why aren’t the bugs after them?”

  You have a meteorite coming in at your four o’clock.

  Shan’s turn put them back in range of the Zelk fire. Warnings blared. The tight turn got a boost when an incoming exploded on their nine o’clock. This time Ashe used the turn to shove the wire in place before getting rolled into the back of Shan’s seat.

  Cloak is engaged.

  The Zelk continued firing from their ground position as they pulled away from them, the concussions causing turbulent air currents, but at least they were too far to cause more damage to the bird.

  “The fire came from within what I believe is my strata compound.”

  It made sense, if Time were drawing all the players to ground zero. And if Time could make sense to them.

  Damage reports began to pop up. A crack in the hull, damage to some of the fuel cells, the engine with problems had more of them. They’d probably make it as far as the compound and then it was stuck-dirt-side in crap city. Ashe shifted the Keltinarian version of an MRE off her chest and sat up. Was she hungry enough to try one? His powers-that-be appeared tight fisted, and parsimonious, plus. Added to the energy bar she’d already sampled? No, not quite ready for more nasty crap. Unless you need me to eat? So far no drones had been rushed to her sore spots, but she could concede fixing her ass was a low priority at the moment.

  “I think I need to add a rider to the it’s never a good day to die to it’s never a good day to get eaten.”

  That surprised a laugh out of him. A first and very nice. Infectious, husky, laden with charm. Her body ached in diverse places. They were flying over a dead city infested with eat-anything bugs, occupied by some pissy Zelk who wanted to shoot them and doing it in a damaged bird. Not to mention Time batting them around. And she felt—she laughed—she felt happy. Wow. Had to be bat-crap crazy and did not care. She settled into the co-pilots chair, winced a bit at contact with the sore spots, and grinned at him. Laughed again.

  “We’re so hosed.”

  “Is that a family saying, too?”

  “More like a state of being.”

  “I would like to meet your family.” That seemed to surprise him.

  Surprised her, too. “I’d like that.” Maybe. If she could screen out the embarrassing ones. Would take a lot of screening but it would be worth it to see their faces at the sight of the oh-so-barbaric Shan. Maybe it would redefine what was pretty. Cause he looked dang good in her opinion.

  “Are they like you?”

  Her eyes widened. “I…don’t know.” She grinned. “Are you like your family?”

  His eyes widened, then he grinned again. “I also do not know.”

  Not the best time to talk family. She saw him remember, saw the shadows settle back over his face.

  “If we were thrown into the future, then that Zelk craft might be same one we damaged during the battle, might it not?”

  “Anything is possible.” Even the impossible.

  “Then my brother could be here somewhere.”

  Again, “Possible.” Was it likely? Timrick had been missing from their previous encounters. Seemed to have arrived, as an issue, in concert with the Zelk. Which made her wonder. Ashe lifted her legs to her chest, shifting so she could look at him. “Can I ask you something?”

  A sensor pinged and he adjusted course. He’d plotted a course that cleared the meteorite strike zone, but hopefully wouldn’t deplete their fuel cells before they reached the compound. “Of course.”

  “When you said you smelled your brother, was it his blood you smelled? Or him?” Cause it wouldn’t be that hard to make a lizard suit. In fact, it would be a lot easier than sending your brother through time so you could steal his life. She stared out the view screen, her lips twitching a bit at the sight of the devastated city. Bet this wasn’t part of the plan.

  He took his time, the frown back between his dark brows. “I picked up his scent.” His expression eased some. “So he truly could be the human my sensors detected? He could be here, too. Perhaps the Zelk hope to use him to trap me?”

  Poor sweetie. Still hadn’t gotten the memo about who and who not to trust. “Yeah. I have a feeling he’s around here somewhere.” Her gut called it a high probability. Her instincts, too. Logic—which should be fetal in a corner of her brain—liked it, too. I think we might have a winner for bad guy.

  I must agree.

  You’re not talking to him, too, are you? No answer. Of course he wasn’t. He hated being the bearer of bad news. Except when he delivered it to her. Then he loved it.

  * * * *

  “What if we lured them to the compound? Set a trap?” Shan spoke into a silence that seemed long and weighted with much they didn’t want to tell him. He felt them thinking, which was strange, as was the sense of being shut out of that conversation. He did not like it, which was also strange, since he’d found the intrusion into his mind unsettling. For the first time in, well, a while, he parsed her scent. Found it full of trouble, but not deception. Only those you trust can betray you. Was Timrick the one? Or was it Ashe?

  The small ship rocked through air currents that seemed to go every direction. He got a course warning and shifted to the port as a falling streaked by, making the craft rock harder. Heat shield warnings blared. He shut them off, took them up to the edge of the cloud cover, needing a higher view to spot the fallings. And perhaps he did not wish to see the city. “Or somewhere else.” He wanted to believe her concern was the location and not his brother. “We could set our trap somewhere else.”

  This seems to confirm my hypothesis.

  So they had decided to bring him back into the conversation.

  “That does look like a distinct, impact pattern.” Ashe leaned forward, though the screen she studied was visible inside their heads.

  It was true that while the impacts points were many and diverse, particularly not far from their crash site, they showed a distinct wide end and a narrow one, like an arrow pointing to a single region of the city.

  Ashe looked at him now. Her color was better, but her eyes still appeared over large and bruised beneath. “Is that where I
think it is?”

  He inhaled. If this were a dream, now would be an excellent time to wake. “My family’s compound.”

  “Sometimes I hate being right. Holy, freaking crap.”

  “On a cracker,” he heard himself add, though he was not sure why, since he’d never heard of one. “Is this a time,” it didn’t appear the same as the waves he’d observed, so he modified the question to, “event?”

  “The short answer is, yeah, probably.”

  “And the long answer?”

  “Yeah.” A pause. “Probably.” She grinned, though he saw strain etched in it.

  Ashe.

  The minatory tone made Shan smile. He arched his brows.

  “Time theory isn’t,” she sighed, “easy. Nor is it tidy. It’s confusing, with or without the scary visuals, but I will try.” After a short pause, she went on, “Time, as humanity perceives it, is an artificial construct. We assign it measurements, surround ourselves with clocks, track it’s passing in order to feel in control, to create order from chaos. All in an attempt to understand what time is…to feel comfortable within its flow. And failing.”

  “That is not true. Time is—” He stopped. He knew what it was, but did not know how to say it in words. It just was.

  Most species we have interacted with have postulated Time as a nonspatial continuum in which events occur in an apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future. An interval separating two points on this continuum; a duration. A number, as of years, seasons, days, or minutes, representing such an interval. A similar number representing a specific point on this continuum, reckoned in hours and minutes. A system by which such intervals are measured or such numbers are reckoned. It can also be defined as an interval, especially a span of years, marked by similar events, conditions, or phenomena, an era.

  “Right.” Shan rubbed a temple that had just started to ache. “And what do you believe Time is?”

  The return of the grin was a warning. “Time is a bitch.” She made a small face. “Or the son of one.”