Best of Beyond the Stars

by Patrice Fitzgerald

  Then it was time to go. I magnetised my hands and went to crawl once again, back up the way I’d come, but my limbs didn’t stick to the metal.

  “Magnetism is damaged,” said Sandy.

  Dammit. I knew when I was beat. “Send out a distress signal. Have our escorts cut me out of the hull.”

  “You’re not going to like this,” said Sandy, “but that’s a no-go. The antenna is damaged too, and by now we’re deep inside the Anchorage. Metal of this size is going to function as a giant Faraday cage. Range is severely reduced. We can maybe talk to Angel or Stanco if the get close enough, but apart from that, we’re on our own.”

  “Fine. We’ll get closer to the hull so they can hear us.” I started to move back the way we’d been blown, pushing off the metal deck for leverage.

  Sandy flashed a red warning. “Lots of movement that way,” she said. “Should I warm up weapons?”

  AI were forbidden from giving orders or advice. Yet, she always seemed to find a way to let me know what she was thinking.

  “So you’re saying that we need to go deeper.”

  “I’m not saying anything,” said Sandy. “But we’re down to half a tank of flamethrower fuel and only packing a thousand more rounds of autogun ammo. There’s a lot of hostiles out there.”

  I hoped Stanco and Angel were okay.

  “Further toward the bow then,” I said, and kicked at the burned-through husk of the door until it broke, and we sailed through.

  Sandy drew red lines and I followed them. The corridors widened as we got further in, a change I took as a blessing. I was still forced to crawl, though, but it wasn’t as hard. On the way we passed more battle sites; blood splatters and scorch marks marred the walls, standing as mute testament to the struggle.

  As always, no bodies.

  I wanted to talk to Sandy. No, that wasn’t true. I wanted to talk to Sandhya. The woman I’d loved on Polema. I wanted her to tell me everything was going to be okay, like she used to. I wanted to hold her again. I couldn’t focus on the mission.

  Maybe my brain was damaged. Sandy had been non-specific about what kind of injuries I had. Everything hurt but I kept going.

  We turned a corridor. Frozen drops of ice filled the vacuum like little snowflakes.

  “The water processing room,” said Sandy. “It must be leaking.”

  Ice wasn’t dangerous in small amounts. The armour on my suit could deflect autocannon fire. The main risk would be that I’d be trapped. “Will that be a problem?”

  “Just be careful,” she said. “Water expands as it freezes. Structural integrity of the Anchorage is going to be low here; those walls will be close to buckling. Float where you can, touch as little as possible.”

  Again, I tried to guess what she was thinking. “You want to drive?”

  “It would be more efficient if I did.”

  “Go for it,” I said, and the EVA pack kicked in again. I floated amongst the ice crystals, the EVA pack moving the suit in ways I could not, tilting perfectly, tiny puffs of nitrogen guiding me forward.

  As we passed the water processing room, I looked inside.

  I don’t know why I did. Human nature, I guess. I wanted to see the leak. I wanted to see whatever thing was inside there, mundane or mysterious.

  I saw the glint of green reflecting in the ice. Definitely more mysterious than mundane. I shouldn’t have stopped, I should have kept going, pushed on until I could get free of the hull and send out a signal to get picked up.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked. “Stop.”

  The suit braked. I spun, facing the doorway, then drifted inside.

  The room was packed full of chrysalises, olive green and bulbous, ranging in size from a few centimetres to the size of a man. They were sacs of fluid held in place by thin membranes; the majority were clumped together against a broken bulkhead, the others layered the floors and ceiling. Each one extruded thin brown tentacles which burrowed into the ice. Devouring it. Others curled around light fixtures, power outlets, and the door switch. Feeding.

  Within were creatures. The smaller ones looked indistinct, just a blob, but the bigger ones...they looked human. An identical person. Androgynous, even genderless, attractive but remarkably plain; olive skin, brown hair. Their skin was markless, fresh, like a child’s even though they looked about thirty.

  “This is creepy as shit,” I said.

  “Sometimes I’m glad I’m a robot,” said Sandy. “Golovanov will want a sample.”

  Wordlessly I extended my finger toward one of the larger sacs, and used my implants to activate the sample probe. With a flash of sparks the device broke off. It was broken too. Damn.

  The thing in the sac looked at me. Did nothing more than move its eyes. They glowed red, faintly, just like the bugs had done. I looked at another one. It, too, reacted to my gaze by staring at me. Soon they were all doing it.

  So if my sensitive equipment wouldn’t work, I decided to cut to the chase: I punched one. The sac burst like a watermelon and my metal fist slammed into the creature beyond. Its blood exploded, red and rich, all over my fingers. I used my other hand to splatter another one.

  “Preliminary examination of the facial structure of these creatures indicates a striking similarity,” said Sandy. “Scraping the samples off your fingers. Analysing. The two bodies we sampled are identical on a genetic level.” There was something in her synthetic voice. A mixture of wonder and apprehension. “The DNA strands appear to be a combination of...at least a hundred individuals.”

  “That’s why there were no bodies,” I said. “The bug-things took them and, somehow, blended their DNA all together to grow this...person. But why?”

  “I can’t answer that even if I were allowed to.”

  I couldn’t‌—‌simply couldn’t‌—‌begin to understand what I was seeing, but the cold, empty way their red eyes stared at me told me there was only one thing to do. I floated back to the corridor, ignited my pilot light, and I poured flame into that room until there was nothing left in the tank. The fluid sacs burst, the bodies burned, twitching as flame and vacuum ended them. I emptied a hundred or so high-explosive rounds into the room just to make sure.

  “Excellent work,” said Sandy. “I was really hoping you were going to do that.”

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I said, and as Sandy began steering us down the corridor again, I tried to get as far away from that room as possible.

  * * *

  Left. Right. Right. Left. Right. Right. Right. Right. Left. Straight on.

  Without Sandy I’d be hopelessly lost. On the Lahore my implants guided me; here, the AI did.

  How did people even get around before computers? I remembered they had maps. Gas memories. Or they just got lost a lot. Or...

  My mind was wandering when it should be focused. For a moment, I felt odd. Like I was going to throw up; something I couldn’t do without a mouth or digestive system. “Hey Sandy?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t feel gas.”

  Sandy said nothing for a moment as the EVA pack guided us around another too-small corner. “You’re dying.”

  So simply stated. My nervous system was linked up to the suit’s sensors and inputs, but my brain was within my biological body, and it was screaming.

  “How far away are we from the outer hull?” I asked.

  “Six minutes,” said Sandy. “Maybe less. I’m avoiding unstable areas. We wouldn’t want to get pinned in here.”

  “We would not want that,” I said. “Although I’m sure you’d be fine.”

  “I’d miss you,” said Sandy, and I think she actually meant it. The way she said it, though, with Sandhya’s voice...that hurt more than all the broken ribs in the world.

  “Hey,” I said. “Just saying. If it makes you feel better...you suits cost over eight hundred million credits each. My death benefit is only about five hundred thousand. Much cheaper for every single one of us to get blown up than one of you guys.”

&
nbsp; “That actually makes me feel worse.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to make you feel gas, ya’ dumb robot.”

  A few seconds of silence. Then, a yellow bar lit up around Stanco’s portrait.

  “-uddy,” came his voice, heavily obfuscated by static, “you out there?”

  “Stanco! Sandy, give him our locat‌—‌”

  “Already done,” she said.

  “Hey Caddy!” Stanco became clearer by the second. “Buddy, mate, I knew you were too fucking cool to be dead.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said, “but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. I’m hurting pretty bad. Antenna’s damaged. So’s my magnetic grip. I’m lost, and running low on ammo and options.”

  “Right,” said Stanco. “I have a fix on your location. Hold tight.” Seconds later, Stanco’s suit flew around the corner, nearly smashing into me. “Found ‘ya.”

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said. “Thanks for coming back for me.”

  “Angel wanted to exfil,” he said, “but Golovanov ordered us back. You got all the other Immortals out looking for you too. We can’t have you ruining our good name on our very first mission now, can we?” He hooked his arm around my EVA pack. “Okay. I’m going to guide you out of here.”

  “Sounds gas,” I said, and again, the world seemed a bit fuzzy.

  “Hey buddy,” said Stanco. We were moving. He was moving me. “What’s Eris like this time of year?”

  What a weird question. “It depends on where you are,” I said. “Planets are big. Frozen areas, forested areas, deserts...what do you like?”

  “I like forests,” He said. “Always do. Every time I got married, I’d take the lucky girl or guy to a forest. I like verdant things. Verdancy. Is that a word? Verdancy?”

  Osmeons were polygamists. Sandhya had lots of husbands. And wives, too. Girls marrying girls. There was nothing wrong with that.

  So I had to keep telling myself.

  “Why do you need so many?” I asked. “Why not...just find the one? The person who makes you feel like all the world’s right when you’re with them?”

  “Because,” said Stanco. “Sometimes that’s more than one person. And it’s easier to trust when your marriage is a family.” He steered us around a big corridor. “The last guy I married, right? He tried the whole monogamy thing. You know what he told me?”

  “What?”

  “Something like...I thought having a vasectomy would stop my wife getting pregnant again. Turns out it just changes the colour of the baby. He was doing the whole monogamy thing but she wasn’t. I don’t need that shit in my life. If my partners want to fuck around, let them. They’re going to anyway. Better we do it on our own terms.”

  “That’s brutal.” I felt tired, distant. Too many thoughts of Sandhya, and of what I’d done to my wife. With her. With the soldier I met on a distant world... “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Trying to keep you focused.”

  “‘Cuz I’m dying?”

  “Pretty much.” Stanco steered us up to a tiny gap I didn’t think we’d be able to fit through, and then‌—‌somewhat roughly‌—‌stuffed us through, scraping the hell out of the suit. “It’s the game of war, buddy. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

  “That actually makes me feel worse,” I said, stealing Sandy’s line.

  “Hey,” said Stanco. “I can’t make everyone happy. I’m not pizza.”

  “I hate pizza.”

  He laughed down the line. “You can’t hate pizza. Nobody hates pizza. You’re a fucking monster.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that so said nothing. We flew past various rooms. Quarters. Observatories. A bar.

  “Hey Caddy,” said Stanco. He just wouldn’t leave me alone. “Want a drink?”

  More than anything. If I was going to die, I might as well do it with less pain. “Nah. There are demons in there.”

  “You what?”

  “I used to have a drinking problem,” I said. It was tempting to mute him but I didn’t. “I still do. But I used to have it too.”

  “Alcoholic, hey?” Stanco blasted open a section of the wall. The bulkhead splintered into a million shards. I barely heard the explosion. “You know there’s an injection for that now.”

  Was there an injection to take away the pain in my chest when I thought of Sandhya? Was there a jab in the arm that could make the dead come back to me? “I know,” I said. “I could just shoot myself in the head. That’d be great too.”

  “Mmm,” he said. “Doesn’t sound like a fun way to go. How does someone get like that? All suicidal like Angel?”

  Easy answer but hard to say. “For most people, it’s when someone dies who you love more than life itself. Substance abuse is gentle suicide.”

  “You’re right where you’re supposed to be right now.” I could practically hear the smile in his voice. “You couldn’t not be, friend.”

  Where I was supposed to be... “For me, the only thing worse than death is the end of the whisky. And I’ve been sober for a while now.”

  He chuckled at that, another prerecorded noise that filtered through the radio. “There’s a saying on Uynov,” said Stanco. “Angel told me. You treat a wound on the skin with grain alcohol. You treat a wound in the heart with spirits.”

  “Sounds gas. Spirits keep my spirits up.”

  “Except you’re sober now,” said Stanco. “So you’ve found something else, right?”

  Something else? What was there? “Naw. Just because you’re sober doesn’t mean you don’t miss it. Biggest days for relapses are anniversaries: first week, first month, first year, first decade. The shitty truth is, you’re never really clean. You’re just trying to beat your record for biggest gap between relapses, and eventually you die.”

  “Not today,” said Stanco. “We aren’t dying today. I’m far, far too funny to die.”

  “You’re a funny guy,” I said, groggily.

  “My humour’s like a little kid with cancer. Never gets old.”

  “The Prophets Wept...” I went to banter more, but from around the corner came the sound: rain on a tin roof. A stampede of spider-creatures, howling as they ran toward us.

  “Okay,” said Stanco, “Yeah. Maybe we are dying today.”

  Then I passed out for a bit.

  * * *

  “‌—‌CC’s of adrenaline straight into the heart. Going now. Injecting!”

  Something dragged me back to life. A chemical coursing through my body, keeping oxygen in my brain.

  “He’s back,” said Sandy. The relief in her voice was palpable.

  I expected to be waking up in the infirmary aboard the Lahore. But instead, Stanco was standing by an airlock, his metal back braced against one door, a foot holding it open. He had discarded his assault gun and held my autocannon in one hand. He was firing it in bursts, spraying down some unseen target.

  I was still in the suit. I was still aboard the Anchorage.

  “I took your gun,” said Stanco. “That’s how you know we’re best friends. Sharing guns.”

  A quick check of my readouts confirmed I was weaponless. “How long was I out?”

  “A minute or so,” he said, firing off another burst. I could see red eyes in the dark, and as the shells screamed into the hull and exploded, the flashes showed more of the spider-creatures. “That’s super bad for you.”

  “Super bad,” said Sandy.

  Two more rounds, a double tap. Stanco threw the rifle away. “Guns are completely dry,” he said, and pulled a huge blade from his side. “Good thing I bought this.”

  I felt vaguely more alert. “Guy I know a long time ago...he practised knife-fighting techniques. Big guy. Built like a tank. His arms were coiled springs, fingers calloused. He said that the loser of a knife fight dies on the ground, the winner dies in the ambulance.”

  “No ambulances here,” said Stanco, and as the first of the spider-creatures rolled over him, he plunged the blade into its
head. “So I’m fine.”

  I couldn’t contest that argument. The spiders bit and tore at his suit, sparks flying. Still he kept the airlock open.

  “We gotta get out,” I said. “Sandy, can you move us?”

  “Yes,” she said. “In a moment.”

  Right as she spoke, Angel clambered in through the open airlock. The instant her autocannon was tracked she fired, the portrait in my peripheral vision was iron and unchanging. Strobes of weapons fire lit up the cramped airlock.

  The EVA pack moved once more, pushing us out the narrow gap, and then I was in open space again. Behind us, flashes of weapons fire grew distant, and I saw the Anchorage shrink away, until it was once more outlined in a red box. Seven little stars, the other suits, raced after me, white tails behind them as their EVA packs pushed them toward us.

  “All suits clear,” said Angel. “Nuke it.”

  Missiles flew from the Lahore, little falling stars that streaked across space. They moved so slowly, their movement almost imperceptible until they leapt past us and beyond. Tick tock, seconds passed, and then the Anchorage evaporated in a bright white light. When the blast cleared, all that was left was an ever-expanding field of debris.

  “Heart rate is down,” said Sandy. “Nicholas, you gotta hang on. We’re almost there.”

  “Don’t call me Nicholas,” I murmured, feeling at once so tired I could barely stay awake, and as though I’d just chugged a crate’s worth of stimulants. “Sandhya called me that...”

  Sandy said nothing. I should probably rename her. Change her voice‌—‌it wasn’t right to cling to a ghost, to try and bring my dead lover back to life with a lie. I should probably read the mission dossiers before we launched. I should brush my teeth more often.

  I should probably do a lot of things.

  So, with a list of all my failings big and small playing in my mind, I passed out again.

  * * *

  I almost didn’t believe I’d actually wake up in a real hospital, but as the world crept back to me, I recognised the familiar ceiling of the Lahore. A tray of food, along with a plastic cup of water, sat on my bedside table.