Starfire, A Red Peace

by Spencer Ellsworth

  “I en’t going anywhere. Not yet.”

  Our ship’s hatchway cracks, and the stink of ozonated air, thick with smoke and the smell of burning wires, leaks in. As the first real planet air I’ve sniffed since I can’t remember, it en’t much.

  -18-

  Araskar

  RASHIYA’S PRACTICE SWORD strikes me right under my ribs. My breath vanishes; red stars explode along my vision. I fall to my knees, on the hard ground of the hangar. At least, from the pain that sings along all my nerves, I’m not numb. That’s good, right? I feel my body more keenly than I have in months. Let’s throw a damned party.

  When I can get my breath back, I mutter, “Good hit. Good match.”

  “Oh, we’re not done,” she says. “Got three more nodes until we get around the Dark Zone. We have plenty of time for this. Come at me.”

  “That an order?”

  She raises an eyebrow. “Maybe.”

  “I used to outrank you, Lieutenant.”

  “You can take me,” she says. “You need to come at me like you mean it.”

  “I could never take you, you crazing bitch.”

  “I told you the first night together that you were holding back, and you still are!”

  She told me that? I don’t remember it. Wonder if that’s part of what went into the short soulsword. Yeah, it must be. I can’t quite recollect meeting her, now that I put my brain on it.

  I suspect that I know why I got rid of that memory.

  “I saw you throw your Moth directly into enemy fire. You clung to the burning gun pod. It should have been suicide.” She touches the side of my face, and I wince. I didn’t realize she had come so close. There’s a bruise there too. “Come on. Don’t get lost in your head.”

  “You know me. It’s all suicide, I just haven’t quite succeeded yet.”

  “That’s not you.” She leans in, our faces as close as if we were back in bed, takes my shoulder, doesn’t let me pull away. “I need you,” she whispers, and I hate how close she’s come to my own thoughts.

  I look at Rashiya. Really look at her. I imagine her with the original skin on her face instead of that half-melted synthskin leaving fleshy gaps around the circuit in her forehead, without the scar along her jawline. I imagine her without clothes, the ribbons of bruises up her back from training, imagine her laughing.

  “Tell me the truth,” I say softly. “What’s Directive Zero?”

  She does that cold, blank stare and pulls away. “That’s above your clearance.”

  “Soldiers gossip,” I say.

  “Damn right they do.” She sighs and pulls back. “Let’s not mix orders and fun. Not now. I’ll give you a full briefing once this is all over.”

  I stand there. I hoped she wouldn’t do this. I hoped it even when I took that memory.

  “Come at me again,” she says. “Like you’re trying to kill me. Like we’re back in the pit for the first time—only now you know what’s waiting for you if you’re good.”

  “No,” I say. “If I’m trying to kill you, you’ll know.”

  * * *

  Jaqi

  Some things en’t meant to be described. You know what’s one of them? Sitting in the middle of a nest of black, shining, stinking-of-burn Suits who for some reason all have to look like centipedes, only three times bigger, and their coils and legs are skittering around us. Toq holds my hand so hard it hurts. It’s a bit of a comfort, really.

  Every one of them is divided into metal segments, and each segment sprouts a good assortment of arms, some with organic arms worked into the mix. And old guy . . . there he is, I reckon, the biggest, oldest Suit-a-pede in the room.

  He crawls closer. I try not to stop away. Something’s odd—noisy, I’d say, about this place here. Like there’s some kind of interference in the node, bugging out my brain. Maybe it’s all them old nodes. Maybe it’s all that data.

  His voice echoes, not just through the chamber, but in my head. Like they’re working so close to the edge that they’re on the verge of falling into pure space.

  “I’m the Engineer.”

  This is the Engineer? The biggest and nastiest of all the Suits is Bill’s contact? “I’m Jaqi.” The Engineer always honors a bargain. Better hope Bill wasn’t wrong about that.

  “I was among the first,” he says. “To find the old paths. And you have brought me old data, from before my early days, when the Empire was young.”

  “You were the first Suit?” I look around at the scrambling hive that is this place. Screens pop up in the middle of the air; holoscreens projected on nothing, and them reading letters flash across them at near light speed. “You created all this?”

  Symbols blur across the screen in front of his face. “Yes, I did.”

  “Well.” I look around, trying to show him that I’m impressed, and not creeped.

  “How did you find us?” he asks.

  “Bill,” I say. “Knows everything.”

  “What have you brought us?”

  I motion for Kalia to come forward. She’s clinging to Z’s enormous hand as hard as Toq is holding to mine. She’s got the black box.

  The Suits kind of ripple. I can tell they recognize this thing. “Ancient data,” the Engineer says. “The oldest I have seen.”

  Three twisting, multi-jointed arms emerge from a compartment in the Engineer’s chest, reach for it. Kalia shies back. She wants to hang on to the thing, you can tell.

  “Give it to us.”

  “You have to give it back, Engineer,” I say.

  “We want only the data,” the Engineer says. “Your object will be returned when we have read its data.”

  I reckon there’s nothing I can really do to guarantee that. But this is our chance. I hand the thing over to the Engineer.

  When I do, something comes through his viewscreen, something that almost could be his face. Circuits and wires and flesh, all mixed up, like a wrinkled, ancient map, with two white, blinking eyes. Then the viewscreen lights up with green letters and numbers. Even if I knew these things, I would be able to follow the way that they flash, faster and faster, across the screen. Must be whole books, whole libraries maybe, that flash across that screen.

  The other Suits around are restless, stirring, sending out clicks and creaks. The sight of all that data’s got them in a stir.

  The little marks keep flashing. “Can you read that?” I ask Kalia.

  She shakes her head no. “It’s going too fast.”

  He keeps going like that for a while. I look over at Z. He’s swaying on his feet, blinking furiously. He kind of stinks, like there’s rot in his body. “You, uh, you guys going to figure this out?”

  “It is protected,” the Engineer booms. “Ancient code, writ deep. By those who wrote the nodes into the sky.”

  “Where did you get that thing?” I ask.

  “Dad gave it to us,” Kalia said.

  “Who gave it to him?” Z asks.

  Kalia says, “I don’t know. Dad liked to collect old things.”

  The Engineer’s scan seems to go on forever. Long enough that I put an arm around Z. “Stay awake,” I mutter.

  He doesn’t answer. He leans on me, and that rot-stink gets stronger. No, this won’t do. Maybe if we have the Suits scan him, figure out how to restore him to health. Maybe if we’ve got something else to bargain with.

  And suddenly the Engineer makes a kind of deep, scraping grunt. The red lights in this place dim, and a beam of light erupts from the box, projects itself into the sky over us, and shows—stars.

  A star field.

  “This is the data?”

  “It is a map,” the Engineer says.

  “Of what?” Those en’t any stars I recognize. I’ve seen the stars of this galaxy from just about every angle, except maybe the way they look from the blueblood worlds.

  More of them numbers and letters flash across his screen, a rapid blur of green. “There is no data that tells me,” the Engineer says at last. “We have no data on this
map.”

  “That what the old galaxy looks like?” I ask.

  “No,” Z says, suddenly. He staggers to an upright position, his hand on my shoulder, for all that his hand is three times my shoulder’s size. Staring up in wonder, like he’s seen a whole standing line of ghosts. “This is the old sky. These are the stars that are now shadowed in the Dark Zone.”

  “How do you reckon that?”

  “Our people remember,” he whispers. “There are things too sacred to write. I have it from my father, and my grandfather, and his father and grandfather. That constellation”—he points—“the Great Hunter. My grandmother said that when the Great Hunter went dark, we lost our land, we began the wars against the Empire, and eventually we lost who we truly are.” He sounds about ready to break. “I never thought.” He looks at me, and his face twists up something strange, even stranger than his half-dead look.

  “There is no data for this,” the Engineer says.

  “I reckon it’s because the Empire wiped out this data,” I say. “Why do you think we have this?”

  Z is still staring at me. “What?”

  “It’s you,” he says, like a whisper.

  “Me? The star map is me?”

  “You’re the one. It’s not John Starfire. It’s you. ‘Who shines a light upon the ancient roads, who leads the people to safety.’ ”

  “The one what?”

  Kalia answers, in that same voice she uses for her prayer. “‘The son of the stars faces the giants who stride the worlds, and he is armed but by faith.’ That’s what you mean, Z?”

  Z nods his head.

  “I en’t never heard that.”

  “It’s in the Bible,” Kalia says. “The Third Book of Joria.”

  Z raises a shaky hand. “John Starfire won the galaxy because all crosses believe in that prophecy. But it’s not John Starfire. It’s Jaqi. And the giants that stride the worlds . . .” He inhales, deep. “No peace will last with the Shir, not so long as they exist to eat suns and prey on life. You are going to bring real peace, lasting peace.” His voice breaks a little. “To think that I should die now, when I’ve seen what my grandfathers waited for.”

  “Z . . .” You know, I’ve been telling him for so long that he’s been talking crazy, I don’t know how to make him listen when he’s so obviously out of his head.

  “How do you know it’s her?” Kalia says.

  “Stop encouraging him!” I snap.

  “Don’t mock me, Jaqi!” Z says, baring teeth. “I know this as I know my father’s name.”

  “I’m pretty sure that prophecy said ‘son.’ I en’t ever been nothing but a daughter.”

  “There were no words for ‘son’ or ‘daughter’ in the old Jorian language,” Kalia pipes up, “because the old Jorians didn’t have gender. They could change between male and female.”

  “Really?” Useful, that could be. “I en’t going to bring peace and kill the Shir, though.”

  “You are,” Z says. He leans into me. Boy, does he stink. “You destroyed the Vanguard. You saved the children. You will face the Warlord, and you will restore the truth of Joria, and you will . . .” He’s struggling for words.

  “This is about the most evil crazy thing you’ve said, and you’ve said some evil crazy things, Z. I en’t no prophecy. Them things are stupid. Religion makes folk crazy. Believing makes folk crazy. Look at the Vanguard. I en’t nothing but a girl, a girl who’s spent her life smuggling and just wants to have a damn normal life for a little while, and you’re making things up when we got enough problems.”

  “I know, as I know my father’s—”

  “Let it go, Z!”

  He totters away from my shouting face. I grab his arm to keep him steady. I can tell this guy believes in what he’s saying. Maybe even Kalia’s starting to believe it. Make me want to scream. En’t there enough crazing going around?

  “Engineer,” Kalia says. “Can we access the star map when we want to?”

  “I have broken the codes. I can leave it open, thus, but any sentient who can operate this will find the data.”

  “Hand it back.”

  He does so, not before another little flash of light across his eyes. “The data is good,” he says. Very good.” After a moment, he adds, “There is a ship in orbit. They are hailing us. Asking for you.”

  “Oh.”

  “They are Vanguard?” Z says.

  “They are,” the Engineer says.

  “How the burning hell did they find us?” I ask. “They couldn’t have followed us through the burning Dark Zone!”

  Z, leaning on me, mutters, “Good. We will fight them again, and finish them this time, with all the blood and honor of our ancestors, and die in—”

  “No, we won’t.” I look up at old Engineer. “You going to protect us?”

  He whirrs a bunch of them gears, deep in his old guts. “We must make a contract,” he finally says, “for protection.”

  “We gave you well data, you protect us. There’s a contract.” I point at Z. “While you’re at it, find the data on an antidote for him.”

  “Much more,” he says. “It will take much more to protect you.” He raises one of them metal tentacle things. “We must take you into ourselves. Your knowledge is great.”

  It takes me a long, cold-as-space minute to realize he en’t talking to me. He’s pointing back at Z.

  Z bristles. The sweat coating his skin shines in the running lights. “I . . . you want me to become a Suit?”

  “Your data is precious.”

  “Wait a moment,” I say. “So you could heal him?”

  The Engineer holds his peace for a long time, then says, “We do not need his body. We need his data.”

  For all that Z is near death, he lets out a hell of a snarl. “My ancestors’ knowledge is more precious than—” He stops. And for an Imperial minute, his eyes roam over the kids, weighing things. They would be safe here, if anywhere, with Suits all around. Kalia and Toq look back at him, not quite understanding.

  I don’t know if he even realizes he’s speaking aloud. “It would be an honorable death, protecting you. But my people’s knowledge, that which must not be written—it cannot be shared. Not like this.”

  “You en’t becoming a Suit, Z,” I say. “Look, Engineer, we gave you some serious data. You en’t getting Z’s brain. You fix him up, in your vats, and you cover our escape.” I step forward, ignoring the way he chills my blood.

  The Engineer gives a long rumble, and I see that face in there again, that mashed-up bit of flesh and circuitry, older than some planets, I reckon. “We do not heal. You will be protected within our orbit only.”

  I look between Z and the kids. Kalia grabs Z’s hand. “You need to heal him!”

  “No,” I say, “no, I reckon we can take one more risk.” Luck? You there?

  -19-

  Jaqi

  TWO THINGS.

  One: I en’t never thought I would have a normal life. I hoped. And hope is a dangerous thing in the wild worlds, as much as nice is. So when they said I was the chosen whatdayathink, the special oogie of space, it confirmed what I’d begun to know was true: I en’t getting a normal life, not ever.

  It was nice to hope. But right here, leaving atmos from the Suits’ mainframe, in Palthaz’s old ship, I let go of that hope. Watching the Suit mainframe get smaller below us, a mess of light and blackness, a grid sprawled out across the planet, I let it all go. I en’t ever going to be normal.

  It hurts, to let go. But what I got en’t bad. I got these kids, and I got Z, as long as he hangs on, and for now, we got our lives, if we can survive this.

  Second thing: the Engineer gave this rust bucket a bit of a gloss, far as I can tell. It’s handling much better than it ought, as we rise into the black of space. It swoops and dives like a dream. He told me about the basic shard-shooter, which Palthaz broke years ago, and has finally been fixed. I can fire off a small enough volley when I need to.

  Most importantly, he’s st
ashed parachutes under our seats, and now I tell the kids and Z, “Put ’em on. Only way the Matakas will leave us alone will be if they see the ship go down.” I take a long time wrapping the parachute around me, because I’m making sure that it covers Bill’s guitar, strapped to my back in its little bag. “Come on, Z.” I wrap the chute around him.

  He looks up at me as if he’s about to say something—something like I’m going to die anyway. I cinch the chute tight around him. “Put it on, Z!”

  “You just push this button?” Kalia says, looking at the center of the parachute. “How will I know?”

  “Once you’re out of the ship, count to five,” I say. “You got your black box strapped on?”

  She taps it where it’s stashed inside her coveralls, taped to her chest. “The Engineer said these are called memory crypts.”

  “You talked to him?” I say. “More?”

  “Just a bit,” she says. “He knew a lot. About everything. I asked him whether he thought God was real.”

  “Did he—” Oh, no time. There’s the Vanguard ship. No bug ships yet. And the moon, a long hard shot, fighting gravity from both worlds, beyond it. At least it’s a low-orbit, as things go. Had I a bit more time, I could reach it in a few hours.

  I don’t have hours. I have thrusters pulling fuel from the oxygen stores, to give us a push near the speed of pure space, and a brake just as hard. I’ve got a small collection of Imperial minutes to get from planet to moon.

  “Here we go.”

  It’s simple enough for me. Shoot straight. Right out of atmos, kicking hard right into the blackness, shooting for that moon that’s hanging heavy and close, digging into the oxygen stores like you shouldn’t in the vacuum. The kids moan as the pressure pushes on them.

  Z is rambling. “What cannot be written. I could not give up the things that cannot be written. Blood and honor. I must die in—”

  “Not yet, Z,” I say. This thing can really move of a sudden; it’s just a shame that as soon as we get out of grav, the Vanguard ship starts spitting shells at us, otherwise it’d be one hell of a good ride. “All right, Engineer,” I say. As if he can hear me. “Help us out.”

  Kalia is praying again. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, manifest Starfire be—”