“Well, we are one crew member down, but we are still the strongest crew in the Firosan military,” I announce as the lights flicker slowly on in the bridge, revealing every nook and cranny exactly as I left it.
OK — it’s more red with rust and gray with dust than I left it, rather than the multicolored aesthetic of a thousand mismatched scavenged parts. But it’s still my ship.
“Let’s remind the galaxy who we are,” I shout, raising my fist.
“Fuluhk-canaar!” they roar; a traditional Firosan war cry, the true meaning of which is all but lost. I settle myself at the pilot’s seat as she warms up and then switches on.
The Eclipse is run by an offshoot of the AI that runs Paxia. She is almost a century old, this AI, and I have missed her sweet voice.
“Welcome back, Tyr, Axion, Vyken, Ashok,” she says smoothly. I was thoroughly — thoroughly — against installing an AI at first, but I grew fond of her voice, once I was assured she had no access to any controls. I run my unscarred palm across the control panel that houses her mind, clearing it of dust.
“Hello, Eclipse,” I say. “I apologize for taking so long to give you life again.”
I have not spoken to many people in the past five years. If I didn’t have to communicate in order to stay alive, at least every now and then, I would not have spoken to anyone at all.
Life is better alone. On a ship you built with your own two hands. With a good, quiet, trustworthy crew working away in the background. My ship’s voice is the only one I need in my life — and that is because she tells me of my spacecraft’s status.
I need nothing else. Nobody else. Now that I have my pilot’s controls back, and the vast playground of space back, I want for nothing.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” she semi-interrupts. AI has become a lot better at reading social cues and intonations, and slotting into conversations, since her time, but I am too wary of updating her.
“For my title of general,” I agree. “It was short-lived, but I thank you.”
A strangely long pause. “That was not my intention,” she says, her final word hissing in a way that makes me frown — is there dust inside the mechanism? I hope not. “My logs are updating but there is a message here for you. Have you not been informed?”
“Of my title being stripped?” I probe, settling into my familiar seat in the cockpit. It isn’t the comfiest, but this seat is my home.
“No. Of your match.”
I hear Vyken whisper a curseword and I whip my head around.
“What happened?” I ask my crew, who are standing behind me in the entryway, getting their bearings again on this small vessel.
“Your bride is on her way as we speak. From Earth. You have won the Lottery — congratulations,” Eclipse tells me.
There is a silence for a moment, and then, “What?” I roar, standing up and spinning around. “I have never entered any such lottery. She is broken! She is broken! Find the malfunction, now!”
My crew scatters.
“There is no malfunction,” the ship says coolly. “You have won the Earth-Mahdfel Lottery, and your human mate will arrive shortly. You will be the second Mahdfel in the Firosan system to receive his mate. Congratulations, Tyr.”
Chapter Three
Alyssa
My heart is pounding so hard in my throat that I feel like this nurse might be getting concerned about my health.
“99% match,” she says quietly, and then she leans back and shakes her head. “I have to tell you, Miss Marsh: I’ve never seen anything like it. The last test you took — to see your fertility compatibility with the Mahdfel race — what did you get?”
“66,” I tell her with confidence. I am finding it incredibly hard to hide my wide smile. “I guess I went up by 33%.”
“This is quite unusual,” she can’t help but say, clicking a few times on her hollow, elderly mouse and shaking her head some more. “This new system, Firosa, the Mahdfel who live there have slightly different DNA because their mother species is different from planet to planet — as you know — but a 33% discrepancy is enormous.”
She narrows her eyes and scans some information that I can’t see on her screen. I swallow, my mouth dry at her interest and confusion, and I fidget with my hands on my lap. “Should I just hop straight into the transporter, then?” I ask.
“Legally, yes, you have to enter the transporter right away,” she lets me know without making any further eye contact. “I just want to run the test one more time.”
With a short breath, I present my thumb again and she snaps a small needled device against it, almost like a holepunch, and pushes the slide back under the industrial microscope. One extended glare through the lens later, she leans back again, blowing out her cheeks and checking the information on-screen. It says the exact same thing as it did before. I am a 99% match to the Firosan Mahdfel.
Not to be cocky, but I knew it would work.
“I’m a scientist,” I offer. “Want a second opinion?”
I expect her to argue that that isn’t professional at all, but she gestures to the lens. The screen shows all information about the sample, but the lens is available for a peek. “By my guest,” she says. “Shed some light on this.”
I can hear the cogs turning in my own brain as I approach the lens and look through it. “Aha,” I say. “It’s definitely blood.” She doesn’t laugh. I step back and investigate the screen. The acronyms and shortenings that would stump anyone with no training are like a fluent second language to me, and I smile as discreetly as I can.
I have almost completely forgotten to pretend to be upset.
“You know, I wish I could say different,” I sigh, really trying to channel my fourth grade theater lessons, “but it does look as though I’ve got to go up to one of those … hmm … space stations? Am I saying that right?” I give her my best bewildered look, but she isn’t even looking up at me. She looks pretty upset, and I figure she feels sorry for me — having to uproot my life and go off to an active military base.
She doesn’t know that’s exactly what I want.
“Space station?” she repeats, and I shoot her a glum nod. “No, no. Not a space station.”
“Ah, so an active military spacecraft,” I offer.
“No, you’re going to the planet Paxia, in the system of Firosa. Up until a couple of months ago, completely unexplored by humans. You don’t get to have the honor of being the first human to visit, but you are the second, and that’s kinda cool?” She shrugs apologetically.
“Yeah, right, yeah,” I say, looking away at the wall. “A planet? So … they’re holed up on this planet while they fight the Sulhik Wars? Like an outpost, or…”
“No,” she interrupts. “It’s just a planet. I’m not even sure they have access to spacecrafts on Paxia. According to my records, there are no Firosan-descended Mahdfel anywhere other than the Firosan system, so I think they—”
“No,” I say, sitting back down hard in my chair, my eyes wide despite my will to control myself; my sudden fear. “Recheck the computer. I have medical training. I did four years of medical school. I would be useful in an active military zone. Send me to a space station. Send me to an outpost, a spacecraft.” I have my palms down on the table that separates us and the nurse looks uncomfortable at the level to which I have raised my voice.
“I can’t do anything,” she says quickly. “You have a match. You have to go to your match if you have one. That’s the law.”
“Right, but a 99% match with one dude on some planet, maybe a 98% match with some other guy somewhere else.”
She looks up at me, helplessness in her eyes. “Sorry,” she says.
“I … I have to go to a military med bay,” I whisper, tears pricking at my eyes, which I battle back inside my face again. “You don’t understand.”
And then I realize why she has apologized — she has pressed the security button hidden under her desk, reserved for belligerent and uncooperative women. Two burly men
thick with muscle and disdain stride through the far door, ducking to get inside, and flank me with their arms folded.
“Sorry,” she says again.
“I can’t … this is my only chance. I didn’t think there were Mahdfel who just stayed planetside. Don’t they all have to fight in the war? Don’t—”
“Miss,” one guard says, and there is plenty of meaning behind his one word. Cooperate, or we’ll make you cooperate.
I stand up on shaky legs.
“The other woman on Paxia,” the nurse adds, safe in her chair, safe on Earth for however long she wants. “Since it’s just you two on a planet populated only by men … I recommend you try to find her. Maybe you could be friends.”
A planet populated only by men?
A planet with no war medical station, with no supplies I need? No chemicals used to fight the Suhlik and their spore viruses?
I can’t think of any worse fate than this. What have I done?
I don’t want or need the security guards to jostle or pull at me so I just walk in front of them at a slow shuffle — as if delaying my trip through the transporter is going to make any more than a couple seconds of difference — and we enter the undeniably alien-looking back room of the New York DNA Clinic.
It has white, sloping walls, blinking lights on panels to show that the transporter is working perfectly, and in the center is a bluish tube that reaches from the bottom to the high ceiling of the room. I stand in front of it as the door slides open, and then I let out a shuddering breath as I step inside, clutching the backpack filled with my only possessions close.
I have no choice. This is what I have to do now, or be forced. There is no choice — this was the promise Earth made in order to get the warrior species, the Mahdfel, to protect them in the war. I’ve done something stupid, but … maybe I can make the most of it. Somehow. I can go and find a military base somewhere, find those chemicals, find a way to send the cure back home.
I have to believe that I can do what I came here for. What I sacrificed my entire life to do.
The door slides shut behind me just as soon as the guard hands me a little wrapped mint for the nausea of a transporter. Like there’s anything in the world that can curb the sickness brewing inside me right now. I take it anyway, and then with a single grim look, the guard flips the switch, and everything blinks out of focus as I am flung lightyears away in a matter of seconds.
But … seconds pass and my world stays dark.
And then a female voice that I don’t recognize sounds out: “Error.”
I try to answer but I have no voice. Do I even still have a mouth? Where am I?
“Error. Critical error. Brace for emergency recalibration protocol.”
What?!
Chapter Four
Tyr
The ship rumbles all around me as it fires itself through the void between Paxia and its moon, Aeo. My knuckles around the controls are almost white with the tension in my body.
My title. It took a while for that to truly sink in but, damn it all, that tubby bureaucrat took my title! It has not been an advantage yet … but now with the power of spaceflight back it will surely prove to be useful. And he took it!
“Incoming call from … the Palace of Varrasque, Paxia,” the ship’s AI informs me coolly.
I curse outwardly — Wrax’s home. My King.
I close one eye and then wave a hand, though I don’t want to comply. “Put him through.”
“Connecting.”
I swallow; my throat is dry.
“General Tyr.”
General, I note. I run my hand over my jaw before answering. “My King,” I say. “This is an honor, to what do I owe—”
“Cut the crap, Tyr,” he says, injecting some sort of English language idiom that I don’t understand into his sentence. He must have learned some of his bride’s language to please her, and the thought of doing anything so arduous and boring for somebody else makes me roll my eyes. “What did you do to upset Alko? Do you have any idea how many reports he has filed with my wife in the last hour?”
Reports. How very honorable and powerful of the admiral, I think with a suppressed laugh. “Many apologies for that, my King,” I tell Wrax. “He wished for me to fly a ship top to bottom with those damnable flashing lights, filled with the voice of that latest AI — the one who I swear to Paxia can read my very thoughts! There was no way I was going to sit inside that metal cage and allow a ship powered by nothing but machinery take me to anywhere it felt like!” I am on the verge of ranting now, but the king pauses me with a quiet noise from deep in his throat.
Wrax has known me for many years — we fought together in the Suhlik Wars, and I know that he trusts me deeply. And I him. He also knows how little I trust technology, and he knows why.
The FMS Cataclysm, sixteen years ago, turned out to be aptly named. It was a brand new military spacecraft. My father was the best pilot in the Firosan system, and my mother was his Firosan first mate — as Soraya was to me. As the most competent crew around, they were selected to test pilot the Cataclysm, and the first three tests went perfectly.
Then at the height of war, a Suhlik engineer presumably gained access to the mainframe while the Mahdfel military forces believed themselves to be stealthily staking out an enemy outpost. When they returned to the Cataclysm, the defenses were all completely down, and the AI was up to the eyeballs in viruses.
The ship drove them out into the deepest, darkest bowels of space. It refused to land anywhere, to communicate with anyone, to send out a distress call. They could not override their ship AI.
My parents died after their food stores ran out. Months of terror later — of knowing that it was coming but they could do nothing — they died in each other’s arms. It was only then that the ship was discovered by a random mercenary vessel and transported back home. Almost a year after the Cataclysm went missing.
“My King…” I speak again to fill the silence. I am wondering how to apologize, when he speaks first.
“They tried to make you fly a ship other than your Eclipse?” he clarifies. When I grunt my assent he lets out a low chuckle. “Well, I will let them know that they were being unreasonable.”
A weight is lifted off of my shoulders at once. I catch a glimpse of my reflection, surly but relieved, in the black void beyond the windows.
“Now, about your mission. There’s been a slight change of plans.”
“Yes?” I ask.
“Well … the teleporter, over in the Waste on Paxia,” he says delicately. “Your mate was supposed to be sent there.”
I bristle immediately. “I have no mate!” I spit.
“But you entered the Earth Lottery?”
“I did no such thing! I would never be so disrespectful.” I growl and yank the ship to the left with more violence than is necessary to stay the course.
There is a short silence. “Soraya is dead.”
“This has nothing to do with Soraya,” I say, but in a sense we both know I am lying. Although I never felt the sort of connection with my Firosan colleague that my parents describe, we got along very well and she was perhaps my closest friend. I was to claim her and have children with her — our families were putting pressure on both of us — but we put off the consummation for many years. And then she died. It feels very callous of me to enter the bid for another mate when, in a way, I have already had one and I did nothing to save her life or continue her bloodline.
“Certainly,” Wrax says. “We can continue this discussion later, but the fact remains that an Earth woman intended for you has been sent through the transporter from her home planet and the law states — on both planets — that you must do your best to reproduce with her. She has a 99 percent DNA match with you. Such a high number is almost unheard of. It appears to be fated.”
“There is no such thing,” I say, far more disrespectfully than I should be talking to my king, whether on a voice call or face to face.
“General, I have serious matte
rs to discuss with you,” he says, his voice darker. I make a note to speak up less.
“Please, go on.”
“The transport receiver in the Waste has been tampered with. Sabotaged. It appears that somebody on Paxia is … uncomfortable with the fact that Kivak has been imprisoned and his work has stopped. It seems to be that the Suhlik have more allies than we thought living on our home planet.”
This revelation causes me to grit my teeth. There are men on Paxia who are fine with the Suhlik draining the resources of our beautiful planet? I had thought that Kivak must be the only insane man, but perhaps there is a group of insane men, all clustered together in one place, doing insane things.
“Whoever it is, we must assume this saboteur is very much against the idea of our bloodline continuing with these humans,” he continues. “This means that your mate—”
“She’s…” I begin with anger, but then I trail off. I do not have a mate. There is nobody fated for me. I am supposed to live alone with nothing but my bitterness as company. I know this. But I cannot keep arguing with my king.
“—is in great danger. And, Tyr, whether you want to consummate your relationship is up to you, but you cannot let this women come to any harm when she is technically under your watch.”
“No,” I concede. “I cannot.”
“The backup receiver is on Aeo. Collect her and bring her back to Cara and I in the Palace of Varrasque. We will commune with the goddess and we will determine the greatest course of action from here.”
“And,” I dare to say, knowing the answer, “hypothetically, if I were to refuse to collect this woman?”
I can almost hear Wrax’s face muscles tensing with disappointment at the thought. “Then you would be refusing orders from your king. You would be convicted of treason and of destroying our alliance with Earth with intent to harm the Mahdfel. Can you imagine what the ambassadors will say?” He is exaggerating a little because he is angry at me, but we both know that he absolutely could try me for these reasons. “I also need your help. We are hurtling headfirst into a full-scale war with the Suhlik, that much is clear, but we are far from prepared. We cannot allow them even the smallest of victories or we are dead in the water. Do you understand me?”
Tyr: Warriors of Firosa Book 2 (Warrior of Firosa) Page 2
