Shadow of the Factorum: The Interview

by K. A. Trent

  Kerra was fast, faster than I could have imagined. Her fist flew, she deflected hits, and finally, she landed a kick that hurled her attacker from the back of the speeder; another body slamming into the razor sharp grass; another red mist exploding on the horizon.

  “We’re here!” Teegan screamed from the driver’s seat. I heard Kerra utter an archaic curse word before diving into the back seat and wrapping an arm around me. The speeder crested a hill and ramped when it reached the top. My stomach lurched again, I gripped Kerra tightly as the craft began to drop, faster, faster, faster, finally coming to a halt as it slammed against a metal wall. I heard the engines sputter to a halt; wherever we were, we were here to stay.

  “Let’s go!” Myla shouted. “Everybody out!”

  “You know the drill,” Kerra tapped me on the shoulder before pulling me over the lip of the speeder, start running!”

  Boots on the ground, one foot in front of the other, black dots pursuing us from the horizon across a field of death.

  This time, all three were toting weapons. Teegan with her pistol, Kerra and Myla with rifles shoulderd. I ran between them with Kerra occasionally reaching a hand out to redirect me as we pounded across the metal surface. We were in an aqueduct of sorts, ramped walls at least twenty feet high, passing doors on the right.

  “Here, J-16!” Teegan pointed toward one of the doors. Behind us I could hear the roar of engines, the whining of repulsors, the pounding of boots on the ground. Teegan raised a hand, signaling for us to stop as they removed a round object from their pocket, placing it on the door and stepping back. A flash of light and the door was open, we tore through, guns ahead, the brightness of Ereen’s sky behind. A few feet later and we were standing in an open space, a hangar full of small ships, it stretched for what seemed like half a mile, a gunmetal gray floor sectioned off with painted yellow and white lines. Cargo crates stacked on designated areas, raised sections surrounded by yellow rails. All around us, the sound of engines whirring, voices shouting, tools clacking. They hadn’t noticed that I was gone, at least not yet.

  “This is where we part ways,” Teegan announced. “Kerra, get this girl away from Luna. If they find out what happened here, if they find out who we really are, they’re going to sweep the planet, find our colonies, they’re going to kill us all. Everything rests with you now.”

  “Thank you for your help, Teegan, Myla,” Kerra nodded. “I’ll try not to screw this up.”

  “And you, Astra,” Myla crouched down, coming to eye level with me. “Find a way to live outside the shadow of the Factorum, and one day, you might save us all.”

  Then they were gone, and I was left all alone with Kerra.

  “Get down,” She told me, dragging us behind a pile of metal crates. I ducked and pressed my back to the steel as I heard bootsteps pass behind us. She squeezed my shoulder and pointed in a direction; we darted, ducking again behind a set of crates, and then, finally, reaching the lowered ramp of a mining ship. She gestured with one hand, pushing me toward the ramp at the same time. “In here.”

  We shot up the ramp, rushing past a set of cargo nets, hopping into an open lift that carried us to a second level with a hum. As the platform clicked into place, she stepped off, turning toward the cockpit.

  “Kerra,” I interrupted her, grabbing her arm. “Where are we going.”

  “Off of me,” she jerked her arm away and stepped into the open cockpit sitting down in the pilot’s chair and drawing a harness over her body. “There’s a warp gate, about eleven-thousand kilometers away from Ereen, it’s what we use for trade-“

  “That’s seven thousand miles!” I gasped! “How can we-“

  “Oh look at you,” she said, manipulating some controls on the cockpit panel. I heard the cargo door begin to shut one deck below. “Converting units like a pro. You’re going to have to tell me where you got those smarts one day.”

  “Can we really make it? Where are we going?” I stepped forward and took a seat in the co-pilot’s chair, staring out the front viewport as she played with the controls. A few seconds later, I felt the body of the ship begin to lift. It shook violently at first, I could hear the cargo below beginning to shake and rattle. As the ship lurched forward, toward the opening at the end of the hangar, a voice crackled over the comms.

  “TX-187 Delta Five, you are not cleared to launch, please return to the-“

  Kerra silenced the comms with a single twitch of her finger, and then grabbed the metal thrust lever, pressing it to ¾ and allowing the ship to move forward. The engines behind us roared louder as she placed more thrust on them and the end of the hangar drew nearer.

  “They’ve sounded the alarm,” Kerra remarked as she flipped a few switches. “We’re clearing the hangar in about ten seconds, hold onto something, I’m going to do a fast ascent.”

  She raced along the hangar, finally, blasting through the door and into the open air, the silver sky of Ereen was in full view. Below us, I could see the jutting steel and glass buildings, stretching on for miles, but beyond it, fields of grass, and eventually mountains. So that’s what mountains looked like. I saw them in pictures once, in a book that Kerra had handed me, but now, to behold them the real world, in front of my own eyes, I couldn’t help but stare in wonder.

  As promised, Kerra pressed hard on the thrust handle and banked the ship upward, pressing us back into our seats and causing the engines to scream. I felt myself being pressed backward, an invisible weight crushing my chest, the padded seat enveloping me. I reached upward and pulled my own harness down, buckling it into place.

  “Thirty miles to atmo,” Kerra told me. “Sorry I disappeared on you, after I saw the DNA results I figured they’d see them too, and your hearing would go south. I had to make sure this ship was fueled, ready, and had a legitimate reason for being on the launchpad. Twenty miles, get ready.”

  The silver skies above us began to darken, like the transition from day to night, but fast, much faster. I was pressed further back into the seat, struggling to breathe, gasping as the sky became darker. The engines roared louder and louder until I could barely hear myself think. Then, suddenly, it stopped. The silver was gone, replaced with a canvas of black, painted with twinkling white stars. Kerra leveled the ship out, allowing us to skim the atmosphere. I leaned forward, staring downward at the surface of Ereen below. I gasped in awe, Kerra giggled. She actually giggled.

  “First time?” she said, almost mockingly.

  “Why did you…why did you do this?” I asked apprehensively as I leaned back in the seat. “Why would you help me? I don’t understand.”

  “Luna is a lot of things,” She said to me, finally pressing a few controls and veering off from the atmosphere. “Yeah, we do the slavery thing but that’s part of our culture. The one thing I thought we had, was integrity. What they did to you down there, that shows me they don’t have any left. Where are we without it?”

  “But…I thought you hated me.”

  “Being hard on you and hating you are two different things,” Kerra increased the thrust again and launched us out toward open space. “You’re here because I was hard on you. Learn to tell the difference.”

  “Yes Ma’am,” I acknowledged.

  “Stop that, Astra,” She snapped. “You’re nobody’s slave.”

  There was a brief silence, suddenly interrupted by a buzzing, a beeping, a red light from the center console.

  “Shit,” She said to no one in particular. Her voice sounded panicked. “They’ve scrambled interceptors. They’re closer than I thought they’d be.”

  “Kerra-“ I started to speak up.

  “Not now, Astra,” she snapped. “I have to get us to that war gate again without getting blasted by a defense turret. It’s still five thousand miles off. We’re going fast but if those fighters manage to intercept us it’s all going to be for nothing.”

  “Kerra, they’re one six point five kilometers away, bearing 186,” I pointed to the readout above the console. “They’re
already in firing range.”

  “No shit, Astra,” she glanced at me. “Thanks for the- what? How do you…?”

  “Bank left!” I practically screamed. “They won’t use phase canons this close to atmo, you’re going to be dodging projectiles!”

  “Shit!” Kerra grabbed the stick and jerked it to the left, forcing the ship into a roll, just as she did, a stream of yellow tracer rounds blasted past the cockpit window. “Ten thousand kilometers to the gate and falling but…”

  “But we’re not going to make it,” I said quietly. “Unless..”

  “Unless what?” She demanded. “Are you a pilot all of a sudden? Can you do that too?”

  Just as she spoke, an impact rocked the ship, I screamed in shock as we rocked back and forth, alarm lights flashed across the center console.

  “There’s a turret in the back,” she suggested, staring at me.

  “This is a mining vessel,” I told her. “That turret is meant for blowing chunks of asteroid apart. If we try to take on military grade interceptors we’ll hit the azimuth limit every time unless one of them decides to hold still. I have a better idea-“

  We were rocked again, we’d moved far enough away from atmo that they were beginning to use beam weapons. Kerra banked again, this time an interceptor blasted past us, raking the side of our vessel with Vulcan cannons.

  “Hull integrity sixty-eight percent” The computer chanted.

  “Kerra, listen,” I began to unbuckle my harness. “I know this is a mining vessel, but hear me out, please. These vessels are equipped with star drive-“

  “Did you do drugs?” she said it quickly, impatiently. “It’s a mining vessel, it’s meant to be dropped off by a carrier and picked up later! It doesn’t have a star drive!”

  I didn’t have time for this. I leapt from the seat and rushed toward the back of the ship. I quickly crawled up a ladder, through a maintenance tube and slid backward through the tiny space until I came to a small panel. Opening it, I saw the words JR-178 printed above a switch panel. I sighed and slid out of the tube.

  “Screwdriver!” I shouted to Kerra as I rushed toward the cockpit.

  “Maintenance kit!” she pointed to a compartment below the center console. I guess she was done questioning me at this point. I reached belong the console, grabbed the metal box, and rushed back toward the maintenance tube. Another impact struck the ship, I could hear the frame of the vessel creak, for a brief second, my feet floated from the deck as the artificial gravity failed and then re-oriented itself. I yelped as the impact nearly snapped my left ankle, but continued to run, climbing up the ladder, scooting backward into the tube once again, and pulling a screwdriver from the maintenance kit. Four screws later, the switchplate came off, revealing the larger adapter it was plugged into. As expected, right beside the adapter, a coiled, metal braided cable that I was able to easily yank out and plug into the adapter. I packed up the maintenance kit and grabbed the free end of the cable, dragging both along with me, down the ladder and toward the center of the ship. I used my free hand to tear free a panel, which was cast aside as the ship rocked again. I watched as it clattered against the hull and gasped as I lost my feet, falling into the compartment beneath the panel.

  This one was easier, no screwdriver required. I simply plugged the cable into the patch connector and poked my head out of the maintenance bay.

  “Kerra!” I shouted. “Tell me when the thrust amplifier light turns blue!”

  “Blue?!” She screamed back. “It’s a solid red, it’s always bee—what?!”

  “Yeah there we go,” I muttered, leaning downward to throw the priming switch beside the patch adapter. The ship began to emit a low hum, I could hear it, back in the engine compartment as it began to echo through the maintenance bay. I climbed out and rushed toward the cockpit.

  “Okay, Kerra, listen,” I said in a rushed tone. “These ships, mining ships, they have the star drive but they need more energy to actually use it. Mining ships are made to convert kinetic energy, it’s how they jump from rock to rock without burning a lot of fuel. We’re going to-“

  “Wait,” she grabbed my arm and looked up at me, her eyes wide. “How do you know all this? Who are you?”

  “Kerra,” I pulled my arm free and placed my hand on the thrust handle, and then the thrust amplifier. “You locked us down there with people you kidnapped. Doctors, scientists, engineers, physicists, and then you forced us to work in a broken factory. Who do you think built your ships? It wasn’t you guys Set your coordinates.”

  Kerra stared at me, her eyes practically bugging out of her head. Then, finally, she returned her attention to the control panel and typed in a set of numerical coordinates.

  “We’re going to have some trouble with orientation once we get there” She told me. “Coming out of hyperspace this close to atmo is-“

  “I know how hyperspace works, now, what we’re going to do is draw those fighters in and use the warp bubble to incinerate them, that should give us enough kinetic energy to push through to the warp gate. Are you ready?”

  “Astra?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Look, no matter what happens here I…I want to think you for changing my mind.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I pulled the thrust handle all the way back, bringing the ship to a lurching halt. Kerra jerked forward a bit, I stood my ground. I stared up at the screen, counting the seconds as the interceptors closed in.

  “Three, two…”

  I didn’t even say ‘one’. I slammed the thrust amplifier control and listened to the engines wine as they created the warp field around us. The ship began to shudder, I could feel it, feel the interceptors entering the field, I could feel them as they became trapped within. I closed my eyes briefly as I realized that all of those pilots, the ones that we’d trapped, were about to die. I exhaled and pushed the thrust handle forward. The world exploded.

  Space ahead of us, beyond the cockpit window transformed into a field of white, I could feel the explosions outside rocking the ship. Then I could feel nothing.

  Chapter 33

  My senses returned to me. The brutal awakening that greeted me every morning as I drifted upward from sleep's sweet embrace to the cold void of the real world. Like swimming upward through a deep lake, the outside world became louder, and louder, the sounds moving faster until finally my eyes flew open with a start.

  “Astra, Astra wake up.”

  “Hull integrity sixteen percent.”

  “Did- did we make it?” I took her hand and allowed her to pull me to my feet, but I found myself stumbling, right into her arms. She pulled me over to the pilot’s seat and drew me onto her lap. My head screamed, every muscle in my body was aching. For the first time, I noticed that we were wearing EVA suits, but not bulky ones. They were more skintight, allowing for maximum range of motion, and a force field to cover the face.

  “We lost half the ship,” she confirmed. “But we made it. That was- honestly I’ve never seen anything like it, Astra.”

  “Don’t tell the safety commission,” I muttered. “What do you mean, half the ship?”

  “I mean, the entire back half of the ship is gone, emergency force fields kicked in but I got us into our EVA suits. Just…just rest here for a minute, okay? You’re hurt.”

  She reached forward and flipped the comms back on, took a deep breath, and then spoke.

  “Is anyone out there? This is Kerra Erth, Constable in the Ereen Naval Service. We’re inbound from Ereen, can anyone-“

  The comm channel returned static, she switched it to a different channel and repeated the same message.

  “This is Kerra Erth, we need immediate assistance, our approximate location is X one-eight-four-two, Z six one two four, Y eleven, four, three.”

  “How long will our oxygen last?”

  “About twelve hours in these suits,” she sighed. “Try not to talk too much, maybe we can buy some extra time.”

  “I…don’t know how t
o thank you,” I said.

  “Don’t thank me too much,” she remarked. “We could still die out here.”

  “But you gave up…everything for me.”

  “Little bit,” she confirmed.

  “Did…you know my mother? I know you’re both in the…army…”

  “Navy,” she corrected me. “I didn’t know her, she’s older than me, but she was kind of a hometown hero. She didn’t know it, but she taught me, when I was very young, that sometimes the rules are worth breaking, if the rules are wrong. I wanted to believe in Ereen, I really did, but people like her, and people like Donna…they showed me that sometimes you have to believe in yourself. And then there was you, the icing on the cake, as it were. Honestly, I’m shocked that you were found, Callie pulling you out of there was one in a million. Blind luck really. Well, lucky for you, not lucky for them.”

  “Do you think my mom is still alive?”

  “Go to sleep, Astra, save your oxygen.”

  I turned away from her, turning my attention to the canvas of stars in front of us. It was beautiful, it was serene, but at the same time it was terrifying. Here we were, two insignificant people floating in the blackness of space, our ship crippled, our destination unknown, at least to me.