Zero Star

by Chad Huskins

  “The Orphesians and vorta go everywhere the fleets go—”

  “Out of desperation and a lack of anywhere else to go! And that’s exactly my point. We are a hodgepodge of lost souls, and have been for quite some time, even though people don’t like to admit it. You talk about restoration, but where’s the restoration of protocol, and discipline? When are we going to start doing things the proper way?”

  Kalder sighed, and leaned forward. “Is there something you wish to say to me, Miss Holdengard?”

  “I don’t trust you. How’s that?”

  Everyone looked at him.

  “And you would be an idiot if you did,” he said. He pointed at the images of Deirdra and other worlds. “But the Decay is coming. As are the Brood. And the Fall of Man continues. Tell me, do you have a plan to stop it? Do you have some secret means of reversing all the corruption and evil that has undone us? Do you have a better idea of how Man ought to be spending his resources?”

  Moira just looked at him, not blinking.

  “A pity. I was truly hoping for someone to talk me out of what we’re about to do,” he said. And meant it.

  He also realized, with a degree of sadness, that Moira Holdengard had to die.

  : SDFA Lord Ishimoto

  Four hundred men gathered in the main hangar to hear Lyokh speak. The remainder of the Knights of Sol were listening to their commander from aboard the ships they were stationed on. Cameras were on him, too. Dolstoy was there. They had gone over the speech together, made a couple of changes, altering it so that it all was written in separate, digestible segments that he could remember.

  In no way did Lyokh actually feel the words was saying, nor recall half of them afterward. The words had not been his. The message had all been filled with key phrases that Dolstoy had helped craft, with a narrative Kalder had helped her shape. There was a phrase repeated over and over: “we stand.” It was meant to couner the notion of the Fall of Man. A lot of “as we make our stand” and “we take this stand” and “we must stand and be vigil.”

  Throughout it all, he had thought about what he was leading his people into. Lyokh’s mind was a simple one, and the strongest part of it shouted for confrontation, movement, even violence. In a way, this was precisely what he needed. It was what he knew. It was what he was made for. Yet it all felt wrong.

  “You’re overthinking again,” Herodinsk told him later when they sparred.

  Panting, Lyokh shuffle-stepped out of the way of his teacher’s next attack, and parried the next away. “But he asks me to help lead a campaign I do not believe in.” He lunged at Herodinsk, who vanished from his attacking line faster than an anguis’s tail-whip.

  “He asks you to do your duty. Your sworn duty.” Herodinsk tapped his blade, on which the Sigil of the Republic had been engraved.

  The blademaster moved in quickly, and Lyokh committed himself to a reverse shuffle-step, then ducked beneath the next attack, went to his knees, and attacked using kneeling-step, surprising his teacher. Their blades connected furiously as Lyokh moved forward, his angles sharp, his delivery precise, his battle plan incomprehensible. He could see both the worry and the glee registering on Herodinsk’s face as he rose to his feet, deflecting blow after blow, and keeping the blademaster on the defensive, sweeping underneath his next strike and almost—almost—connecting his blade to Herodinsk’s throat.

  While they were dancing around, smashing blades, they heard the chime, and felt the lurch in their bellies that signaled Ishimoto’s, and the fleet’s, jump into the FTL bubble.

  This momentary disorientation put Lyokh off his game, and Herodinsk saw his opening. He performed the most elegant guissard Lyokh had ever seen, swiveling his blade around Lyokh’s quillons, disarming him, then catching his wrist and flinging him to the floor.

  “We’re nearly at wit’s end, Lyokh,” the blademaster said. “It is the Fall of Man. If we don’t die here, we die elsewhere, in some other part of the void, surrounded by some other enemy.” He held out his hand, and Lyokh took it, grumbling an old Timonese curse as he did.

  “Your argument is that duty and doom conspire to force our hand?”

  “The Brood force our hand. At every turn.” Herodinsk looked at the time in the corner of his lenses. “Now, come, we’ve got time for one more match before you go.”

  It was a furious match, one that Lyokh very nearly won, but he left rubbing his backside and thinking on Herodinsk’s words. He decided that they were closely aligned to the thought that kept him going. Duty and doom. Knowledge of both had shaped him, but his experience inside the Watchtower had changed him somehow, made him more aware of the grander scheme, and more partial to the truth.

  But Kalder does not represent truth, no matter how much support he gains from the people, no matter what the damned Faith 6A says, no matter what his approval ratings are.

  When he returned to his office, and attacked more of the work that piled up daily at his desk, strands of doubt lingered at the back of Lyokh’s mind, like the frayed edges of clothing, threatening to come apart. He closed his eyes to meditate, but when he did, he smelled the sulfur of a wyrm’s breath, and heard the crackling shift of tectonic plates beneath him, saw the three moons in the sky, and the rings…and instantly was back on the Planet of Wyrms.

  He opened his eyes with a gasp.

  Lyokh pulled up a screen on his lens, and typed out his thoughts. He then sent the report to all members of Crusade’s Visquain, and included Julian in on it, too. He barely started back to work when he received a call on his tab. It was Kalder.

  Lyokh accepted it, and the senator’s face projected in front of him. “Senator,” he said. “How can I help you?”

  “You just sent a request for consideration of a new destination,” Kalder said, looking as even-faced as ever, yet with a glint of curiosity in his eyes.

  “I did,” Lyokh said.

  “To the Crab Nebula. Why, may I ask?”

  Lyokh briefly considered following Kalder’s example of keeping secrets, but then decided that he wanted to see the old man’s response. “I saw something in my…vision.”

  “I know, I read about it in your report on the incident. You think this world of the wyrms is there?”

  He shrugged. “I think something of interest happened there, a long time ago.”

  “A supernova happened, resulting in the Crab Pulsar.”

  “I think something may have stoked that supernova. And I think…”

  “Yes?” Kalder prompted.

  “I think that once we get there, I’ll be able to find…whatever world I saw in my vision.”

  “This Planet of Wyrms?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Lyokh thought about explaining how he still felt that world’s residue all over him, how it was with him still, even as the memories faded. And sometimes it all came back to him, like he was there…He wouldn’t understand. “Call it a hunch,” he said.

  Kalder nodded thoughtfully. Lyokh could hear him drumming his fingers off screen.

  “Consider the itinerary change approved,” he said.

  Lyokh was surprised. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. I would like to discuss it more at length, of course, but I have some work to do, and I’m sure you do, as well. I saw your speech, by the way. It was good, but try not to speak so fast next time, allow for a few pregnant pauses. It keeps your audience in suspense.”

  Before Lyokh could respond, the senator signed off, leaving him alone with the smell of sulfur…and the sound of flapping wings.

  HEETEN’S HEROES MOVED as one mind. Lieutenant Ptolem had them all moving in tighter formations, practicing some of what they had learned from the Brotherhood’s altered phalanxes, adapting it to mechs.

  The large and lumbering Dagonite mechs formed the major wall at the front, while the more agile Aravastars maneuvered to the flanks, and the Untamaks used their huge grapplers to press against the backs of the Dagonites, forti
fying them. They made openings in elegant waves, allowing med bots to pass through, either retrieving the wounded or offering support.

  Ptolem was the perfect pick, Lyokh thought, watching them maneuver. Durzor was right, he’s got it all down to a science and an art.

  When they were finished with their latest exercise, Ptolem opened up the canopy of his Dagonite, unstrapped himself, and climbed down to clap arms with Morkovikson, who had been running the drills with him. Lyokh was glad of the camaraderie. It was one of the few things he’d seen recently that made him forget about Kalder’s stubbornness and their own impending doom.

  “Sergeant, Brother Penitent,” he said in greeting as he walked over to them. “That was beautiful to behold. Heeten would sure be proud.”

  “Her Heroes serve her memory, doyen,” Ptolem said proudly, kissing his fingers and smacking the name written on his mech’s left leg. The letters were big and bold, and declared the machine Heeten. All the warhulks had new coats of paint—white, silver and black, reflecting the hulks that had served the former Knights of Sol. They also had medals and etchings to commemorate the battles of Phanes and Kennit.

  While Ptolem busied himself checking the warhulk’s coolant, Lyokh took Morkovikson to one side. “Are you really going through with all this, Brother Penitent?” he asked. “I can’t imagine your Designate would want to see you thrown into…”

  “Into what?” said Morkovikson.

  “An unwinnable battle.”

  The contrite brother smiled through his thick beard. “We live to serve those better than us. You are our betters. We are all criminals. We’re here for you, doyen, to whatever end.” He smiled wider. “Besides, our lives are pretty fucking miserable, and I think most of us would rather be dead. I know I would.” Morkovikson shrugged. “Our Designate believes it may be an omen, finding this lost colony of humans. We believe she is right.”

  Lyokh nodded, somehow understanding that that belief had not originated from the Designate, but from Kalder. He’s building off of the foundation of these mounting omens, most of which he’s conjured himself by making them look like the work of some divine hand, wielding all his enemy religions as tools.

  “It’s said we finally get to end our hunger when we reach the other side,” said Morkovikson hopefully. “Jain herself feeds us from her bosom, and an eternal banquet awaits us.” He looked at Lyokh. “Do you have something waiting for you on the other side?”

  Lyokh glanced over at Ptolem’s mech’s left leg. “I’m not sure.”

  THEY WERE ONLY days away from Taka-Renault, and the Knights were getting antsy. They all expressed it in different ways. Some of them trained the whole time, even in their downtime, giving themselves no quiet moment to think about it. Others used their downtime repeatedly field-stripping and reassembling weapons. A few soldiers kept to themselves in their billets, perhaps sending up prayers, or just preparing themselves for death. Everyone’s pre-battle ritual was different.

  For Lyokh, sitting down with friends and talking about anything but what was coming was as meditative as sitting in a dark room and breathing deeply. He sat with Meiks, Takirovanen, Tsuyoshi, Ptolem, and Paupau in The Place To Be, all still a little dizzy after getting their standard pre-battle regen injections, and taking their booster pills.

  “Why the hell do I always feel like shit after getting my regens?” Meiks said, rubbing his eyes as he accepted the cards Tsuyoshi dealt him.

  “Your body is receiving a hell of a wake-up call,” Takirovanen said, glancing at his cards and tossing in the ante, with hands far steadier than anyone else’s. “The regens are staving off telomere erosion inside you, as well as reversing oxidative damage, breaking down the build-up of nondegradable protein aggregates, and ameliorating DNA damage accumulation. All the things that keep you mostly young, easier to heal and to receive blood transfers.”

  “They can make meds that do all that,” Meiks said, “but they can’t invent anything to deal with a hangover. Tsk, blows my mind.”

  “If you didn’t drink so much of that swill,” said Takirovanen, gesturing at his drink, “you might alleviate the need of such a cure.”

  Paupau wrinkled his brow, looking at his cards. “This looks all right, I’ll go with these.”

  Tsuyoshi looked at the hand he’d dealt himself, and tossed it away. “I swear, if it wasn’t for bad luck…”

  “Are you in, doyen?” asked Ptolem.

  Lyokh had been thinking to himself about Kalder and his words. Now he nodded and tossed in his ante. “One of these days, I’m going to take ’Vanen over there to the cleaners.”

  “A man can dream, doyen,” said Tsuyoshi.

  Paupau chuckled and said, “Paupau.”

  “Speaking of hopeless endeavors,” Meiks said in between sips of swill, “that reminds me of a joke about a Harbinger and an asteroid prospector…”

  Cards were dealt, swill was served, and jokes were told. No one spoke of the coming battle, or their impossible task.

  Amid all the jocularity, Lyokh looked around at these faces, knowing it was the last time they would have this. He thought of Heeten. Tie a bow around it, he thought, smiling.

  “One more round, doyen?” Takirovanen said, holding up the deck.

  Lyokh thought about it. “Yeah. Why not? One more round.”

  : Taka-Renault

  They came into the system like twenty-eight bullets fired from the pistol of a god. They soon slowed to mortal speeds, and shook off the effects of the Faulkner field so that sensors could see through the invisible clouds of radiation it shed.

  Lord Ishimoto was out front leading Task Force One, sending out probes as soon as it exited its FTL bubble. Shatterstar and Ramlock flanked her, with Miss Persephone just behind them, covering the Voice of Reason with her bulk. The rest of their flotilla was strung out like a variegated assortment of sculptures, all molded by a different artist’s hand, the Brotherhood ships looking the most creative, with hard edges, improvised hull patches, and front-facing antenna arrays that looked like horns, and were harvested from some other doomed ship.

  Donovan sat in the captain’s seat at the center of the room, gazing into the tac display and reading the latest from the probes. Standing to his right was Vosen, his XO, and behind Vosen was Desh, the madman who never seemed to be able to win battles, only get his crews killed. He’d left the Navy in dishonor.

  And standing next to the dishonored captain was Kalder. Donovan hadn’t liked having a civilian on the conn with him during the battle—he didn’t really like civilians here at all, if he was being honest—but both the Senate, the Committee, and Second Fleet’s Visquain had bequeathed Kalder control, and empowered him as a Visquain member himself.

  If he’s going to lead us to slaughter, I guess it’s only fitting he’s at the front of the thing when it happens.

  Donovan wasn’t happy about any of this. Unlike Captain Lyokh, he had voiced his concerns privately, not in front of others, because he believed discretion was important when it came to military concerns. He didn’t agree with Kalder’s mad quest, but he believed in following orders above all, and Kalder had, by some miraculous series of political gymnastics, gotten all the appropriate permission slips to lead this fleet.

  Still…

  As soon as all the initial data had poured in, Donovan absorbed it. The first thing he did was to check the system’s star. It was an old military tactic to hide starships in the glare of the sun, and then ambush. Donovan’s fingers danced through the commands. After filtering to account for the Fourier transform of spectral lines, the far-off star Veronica was made readable.

  “Sensor room, conn,” Donovan said. “Any anomalies to report?”

  “Conn, sensor room,” DeStren replied. “That’s a negative, skipper. All seems to be as Ramlock left it.”

  “XO, all stations report.”

  “Aye, sir.” Vosen tapped the side of his head and activated imtech that took his words from subdermal implants near his vocal cords and broadcas
t them to the intercom system. “All stations, report in.” One by one, they all chimed in, announcing their readiness. “All stations report ready, Captain, though engineering reports a minor hiccup on thrust pressure manifold B.”

  He nodded, then checked his tac display to see all twenty-seven other captains reporting their ships ready. Once it was done, he gave the command for the other three task forces to separate and go about their individual missions. Task Force Two parted ways, led by Vaultimyr, and all of them blinked out of existence as they shot towards the inner belts. Task Force Three, led by the dragonship Ecclesiastes, shot in-system to secure the gas giant Jehovah. Task Force Mahl moved to inspect the outer protoplanets in the Oort cloud.

  “Helm, are we good for another FTL jump?”

  “We are good, skipper,” Cortez reported.

  “Then let’s move close enough that our communications with Deirdra aren’t hampered by too much time lag, but not so close we’re affected by the gravitic effects of the planet and its moon. Let’s say…point-two-three-seven AU.”

  “Point-two-three-seven AU, aye, sir. A-drives are cueing now. Forward laser is still hot. Trim optimal. Here we go.”

  Lord Ishimoto lurched as it entered the tunnel of extruded starlight. She shot to FTL again, heading in-system with the rest of Task Force One. Seconds later, Lord Ishimoto exited twenty-two million miles away from Deirdra, too far away to see it or its moon, but close enough to get a far-ranging sensor scan.

  “Comms One, conn. Send a signal to the UCP. Use the frequencies that Ramlock used and let me know the second we make contact.”

  “Conn, Comms One,” a female voice answered. “Aye aye, skipper. At our present distance there will be about a two-minute delay.”

  “Understood, Comms One.”

  “How is the broodling doing?” Kalder asked.

  Donovan glanced at him, then keyed back to the sensor room. “Sensor room, conn, give status of that broodling?”