Astral Fall

by Jessica Mae Stover

  “He’s primed on intel direct to the space theater’s military capability, history of the enemy, and related points key to our mission. But the terrestrial and cultural aspects of the planet are less important. To increase accuracy, he prefers to discover them personally, as needed. Our experience has shown that’s the best mission approach. That said, someone should have knowledge of the planet available in case events change and we need to act immediately upon arrival, when that information could be valuable. That’s me this go. And Leo—peripheral intel will always be led by Leo and Aaiane, Leo’s deputy.”

  Thwip recognized the crew image Skregs pulsed him: Aaiane was the officer in the blank arrow suit who’d explained sweeteners to him yesterday on P2. The accompanying hash read DEPUTY HANDLER ALEXARON AAIANE VI. A crew org chart appeared as Skregs explained, connecting DH Aaiane’s direct report to Leo with a dozen team leads in turn reporting through her, including Blyku.

  “Part of her duty is off hours from our current shifts, so it will be a while before you work with her again. As for this soft recon I’m doing, Crave will want you to go in clean with the rest of the unit so that he can get your unbiased impressions. You don’t need to review it.”

  “Copy that.”

  Skregs seized his tether and walked him out to the corridor again, then released him to half-tether. “You’re doing well. No worries. Follow me, try jogging. I’ve got you.”

  Thwip’s jog was more like a fast, crooked walk. “Is loop chatter muted?”

  “Rest of unit doesn’t want to hear my overview. And you don’t want to hear Charis’ music choices. She always has music on during prep.”

  She. Charis. Feathers.

  “They’ll hail through if they need us. In case of emergency you can always hail through to one of us without permission and vice versa, even if we’re blocking out one-way or two-way. Nova hoods are made so that the loop is more securely connected than is possible with passing connections. The Nova-devoted P2 PTs took ours so they could craft yours into our loop. The point is, your unit is always with you.”

  You are safe with your unit.

  Skregs caught him with the tether and rebalanced him. Thwip took another go at jogging. “But there’s an issue we’re dealing with. Everything we’ve done as a unit in the past you’re not cleared to know yet. Makes chatter fucking tricky. We reference previous missions constantly in-loop. Leo told P2 it was all or nothing, none of that redacted bullshit. They’ve cleared about half of it so far, mostly early missions.

  “In the meantime, a brief, general overview of unit history. SJ means Space Junkies, which means missions away from Nativity space. Most of us were heavy into the antiterrorism scene in our roselaurels; insurgent activity in the Nativity was hotter then and high-value target clearing was the top priority.”

  Thwip worked to stay focused on the background Skregs offered while managing a fast walk. The first jog he achieved was exaggerated, with loopy arm and leg motions, but it was technically a jog. He privately celebrated the milestone.

  “Afterward, pretty much straight out of trepid workup, we became a deep-space unit. Experimental tactics and tech. New frontiers. High-risk missions, including alien recon. Every now and again, if we’re home in the Nativity long enough, maybe we’ll engage a side mission concerning the highest HVT clearance or extraction, or something delicate that bears the possibility of large civilian and public fallout.”

  Like Leto Cross. Soon I’ll have access to those mission logs.

  “We’ve done just about everything you can think of, and a lot of stuff you wouldn’t dream of. This mission’s about the only thing we haven’t done. You’re leaning too hard toward your dominant hand.”

  Skregs pushed Thwip so that he teetered to the left, overlapped his view in the loop with Thwip’s to see his POV, and then just as quickly unsynced them. It was the same IF maneuver Thwip had taught Disar.

  “Use your left hand—good. It’s important that you learn to wield trepid as quickly as possible. You can’t join in mission prep until you do. Until then, remember: keep your hood on and your suit active at all times. That’s how he likes it. It’s the best way, so it’s also how we all like it.”

  Skregs walked backward, coaxing Thwip to jog toward him again. He turned the corner, and Thwip turned the suit too slowly to follow. In the beginnings of a heavy fall, he struggled to maintain balance. Skregs kept a light hand on the tether, letting him work out the corner for himself.

  “Unacceptable.”

  “Agreed.”

  Two low voices hit Thwip’s aurals. He couldn’t see their sources yet or scan for them, but he recognized the Commander’s spartan tone in the first. With some help from Skregs’ tether, he took the turn. Ahead stood the Commander, suited, wings streaming up his hardhood, leaning over a short, hoodless, bearded man in an arrow suit as though conspiring. Marks on the shorter man’s suit triceps hashed him as Captain, but Thwip knew him from the image Skregs pulsed him in the lab at the same time his IF did its work: CAPTAIN LEO VEDRA.

  Leo’s collar-length beard countered his trim hair. He wore a pair of heavy gauntlet pulse gloves. A slight fray snaked the top of the left’s wrist, and distress marks ringed the finger joints from years of use. Classic issue, sturdy, as good or better than the newest version of gauntlets. Most pros assume newer is better because it usually is, but he’s experienced and has a high level of PT acuity. He won’t change without cause.

  “Departing P2 lessened our intimidation,” Leo said.

  “Staying would have delayed the mission.” The Commander walked over to Thwip, put a hand on his back—Thwip saw the touch register on his body map—and another face faded in on his IF alongside those of Skregs and Wheck, hashed CRAVE. The Commander returned to Leo.

  His dark hair was the same shoulder-length as Wheck’s gold, as if they used the exact same cut-style specs, but while Wheck was gaunt with sharp angles, the Commander’s face was slightly better proportioned. Probably the work of a fine genoming artist. Better than the one my parents went to for me, at least. The dark eyes were the same Thwip had seen yesterday in the reflective P2 crest. His jawline was clean shaven, and now Thwip could also see a thin, white scar, branched like miniature forks of lightning, reaching for the Commander’s hairline: the rest of the fine details of his face were washed out by the innerface scan. With the Commander’s touch, a blank space also appeared on Thwip’s IF peripheral wings where Charis should have arrived, unhashed and set to private mode.

  “Who is withholding the approval?” The Commander’s voice was emotionless, his face calm. He might have been reciting the time. “It threatens our window.”

  “Upchainers do not like abrupt changes on long-lead, high-risk, expensive missions,” Leo said.

  “Who specifically?”

  “Is there a Nova unit that owes you a favor? If they’re at or near P2, I can have their commander lean on Command so they’ll clear unit history for him faster.”

  They’re arguing about me. I’m in the unit. I have unit privilege.

  “No. The opposite.”

  “You all haven’t left me any political capital—”

  “Leto Cross?”

  “Spent. I put a rush on Thwip’s trepid and jumped him to the front of Nova tech queue so that we wouldn’t be delayed enough to push our time frame.”

  The Commander nodded. “You’re avoiding telling me who is withholding Thwip’s full intel clearance. Is that typical of your workflow?”

  “If you want to know, command it. But generally, if I don’t think bureaucracy is important enough to distract you with, I won’t.”

  The Commander didn’t issue a command, so Leo went on. “Due to your last-minute adjustment, someone at Command merely wants to reassert some authority, and they’re using intelligence process protocols to do so. I have some favors owed, but I don’t advise wasting them on a minor annoyance. Let them go on with their symbolic act of power, and we’ll show that we understand that P2 doesn’t have t
o be as gracious with us as they have been. We’re receiving fragments of history cleared for Thwip on a rolling basis, half so far, and it’s only a day out. At this rate he’ll be cleared for full SJ intel receipt well before it could become an issue for the unit. If they don’t clear him in full by the end of the day you dock at base, then I’ll start throwing political shadows.”

  The Commander paused and then half patted, half thumped Leo on the back in agreement and exited down the corridor. His face remained on Thwip’s IF. Leo nodded once to Thwip and Skregs and then headed in the opposite direction.

  “Anyway,” Skregs said as they continued down the corridor in Leo’s wake, “if you free up your upper mechs so that you can use your arms, like when you walk without a suit, then you won’t trip like that. Access is a combination, but it should feel smooth, like one interaction instead of many. It’s like reins—let the reins out, and allow yourself more movement. Try ring-ring-pointer for access, then leave the resulting movement mech open—don’t limit and lock off your arm movement unless you have a reason to. You can’t micromanage your movement like that if you want to be able to do anything else at the same time.”

  Trepid was a much larger step up from roselaurel suits than Thwip had expected. He used his arms to keep balance as he walked, but the way he swung them was exaggerated and awkward, and the motion turned him around in a half spin. He worked his fingers furiously inside his pulse gloves to counter, then finally let go of trying to control his balance by puppeting his suit, and instead used his body’s strength and weight to right himself.

  “That’s it. No one dreams about this part when they sign up for recruitment candidacy.”

  “Why’d you sign?” Thwip asked, making another attempt.

  “Not sure. Seems like a long time ago, but it was only a little over a decade. Dark-e tech accounts for time dilation, but every year seems to go by quicker than the one before.” He watched Thwip’s progress. “Whitemasks evacuated our neighborhood when I was a kid. Yasslozah bombed a market. Parents couldn’t sleep. News and government alerts always on.”

  “That’s what? Fifteen, twenty years ago? It hasn’t stopped.”

  “There’s always another pocket of them somewhere. We get to do something about it.”

  “Yasslozah gets its ideas from the war. So, as long as there’s a war…”

  Skregs nodded. “I can’t remember how many sleepless nights my parents spent watching the news because the UNP had lost a battle or a piece of space presence. There was no question that another bombing would happen—it was just a question of when. We were on constant alert. Humanity has waited nearly a century to be secure again. Keep coming, you’re getting it.”

  Thwip walked a few linked paces without pulsing.

  “P2 recently deployed a Nova unit authorized with a unique plan to end the war. They’ll arrive in Lucian space outside the Sunway and the Golden Gate via clandestine measures, dock terrestrial at Ridrain One, do final recon and prep for a few months, and then begin a secret mission to win the war finally and forever. So humanity is closer than trepid is to skin to having a decent sense of security again. Those long sleepless nights, the intermittent fear civilians live under, it’s drawing to a close.” Skregs seemed to be waiting for Thwip to respond.

  “I was thinking that I got lucky, that I was recruited by the best unit, but that Nova unit’s got a shot at the greatest mission in history.” He grinned. “Should have held out.”

  Skregs cracked half a grin in return, but it was gone as quick as it came. “We are that Nova unit.”

  Thwip paused so he could concentrate on the intel, but Skregs kept walking, and he struggled to catch up. Are you fucking kidding?

  Skregs read his face. “I’m not fucking with you. Our mission is to reclaim the Sovrins and end the war; the plan revolves around a successful space assault. We’ll train in the space around an unknown planet that has conditions similar to those we’ll encounter in the mission, and then we’ll make for the Golden Gate—and history.”

  Skregs rapped his gloved knuckles twice on Thwip’s hooded head. “Mission specs are all on your hardhood. Once you figure out how to access them, you’ll be skilled enough at trepid to join in prep.”

  They stopped outside the open narthex of the ship’s command deck.

  “Mastering the highest-grade suit tech invented… I actually did dream of this part when I signed up for candidacy. It’s why I went into PT. I’ll get to the mission specs today.”

  Skregs regarded him.

  “You’re barely mobile. Don’t ghost yourself. We’ve adjusted to allow you to finish workup. Takes time.” He gestured for Thwip to go first, and they passed through the narthex.

  There was a white noise generator inside the command deck, the soft susurrant sound of air moving, fanlike. Leo stood before a grand half arc folded 180 degrees around him at his eye-level, alive with simultaneous ship data and various scans; the arc’s size coupled with its range of operations was stunning. The leftie half mask he wore cut across to his ear at the cheek, allowing for his beard. His gauntleted hands were folded behind his back.

  Six additional officers were busy at other stations. All wore half masks. The seven smooth, rank-hashed arrow hardhoods belonging to present crew were racked into the wall should they be needed. Another row held a dozen general emergency arrow hardhoods that any crew member could use at need.

  “Thwip, Captain Leo Vedra, SJ Nova unit handler. Hereafter Leo to you. Leo, Deputy Commander Nova Thwip.” Skregs clapped Thwip on the shoulder, glanced over Leo’s impressive half arc, and departed. His face stayed on Thwip’s IF, along with the Commander’s and Wheck’s.

  Thwip walked farther into the command deck. Maxims, reminders, scores… P2 used every interactive space to instruct recruits, and their absence on the Vesper felt odd. An unused flat arc to the right showed a circular symbol—five independent motifs, toned evenly and integrated to work as a unified seal. A pair of wings, detailed with the stylized feathers from Charis’ hardhood, hovered over a downward-facing sickle moon made of bones. The border of the seal was formed from the swirled pattern of a hurricane seen from space. Linking them all at the center of the wings, in an infinity-like figure eight, the crescent moon hanging perpendicular through its bottom loop, was a serpent formed into a Möbius strip.

  Thwip thought about the rosewall and its unfinished entry. I’m replacing another Nova. I need to access unit history.

  “You need to loop me in,” said Leo. He raised a hand, and the six officers on duty vacated the deck. “When we’re done, you loop me out. After that I’ll only be connected during missions or if there’s an emergency. I’ll show you how you can hail me and give me loop access as needed.”

  Thwip focused on exploring his IF and looping Leo. He attempted the combination twice and failed—his pulse gloves went unresponsive and his IF locked, indicating that someone had seized his tether.

  Skregs glanced up but said nothing. Wheck raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ve got him, Crave,” said Leo.

  The Commander.

  Leo accepted Thwip’s remote tether transfer from the Commander and, with a lighter touch than Skregs, moved Thwip’s arms to his sides, hanging in a neutral position. Thwip relaxed and went along.

  “Thwip, if you roll those three commands over one another in that sequence, you’ll send your suit toward a motion that will overextend and break your right arm should you not stop it manually.”

  “Why would a suit be able to do that?”

  “Full manual control in case of any and all contingencies.”

  “Thanks, Commander,” Thwip muttered, but the Commander’s face, along with the rest of the unit’s, had gone greyscale—they’d muted him.

  Leo looked at his arc, then at Thwip, then back at the arc, as though resolving something.

  “It’s my understanding that this is an unusual setup, since I was just short of beginning trepid transition,” Thwip said.

  Leo nodded, an
d positioned his hands in front of the half arc. “Then let us transition together.”

  His hands were so quick at conducting operations on the arc that Thwip watched him instead of the data. Although the Commander had already looped Leo in when he transferred Thwip’s tether, Thwip’s IF prompted him to approve the request. With a twitch of his finger inside his pulse gloves, he gave permission for the link.

  “You said that as though you are also new to the team.”

  “I am.”

  What happened to the unit’s previous handler?

  Thwip’s IF data appeared on the arc as Leo watched his SOC point of view. During missions, Leo would loop the unit’s POVs here and watch live from their perspectives so he could support their needs. Leo magnified Thwip’s body map alongside his SOC on the half arc.

  “How do I move the chem—” Thwip’s chem balancers went offline. He would have stumbled if Leo hadn’t held him steady via the remote tether.

  “This is from when Skregs informed you of our mission.” Leo pointed at the arc, emphasized an animated spike in the suit’s chem history. The data showed that the line from that moment spiked, but then just as quickly shot back down and leveled off instead of gradually sloping downward back to the previous level. “See how the chem balancers overreacted? Straight up and straight down. I waited for you to relax and drop your levels before I pulsed them offline because otherwise it might have browned you out again. Crew doesn’t know you didn’t do the trepid transition on P2, so Blyku let your suit allow levels that are almost the same as the rest of the unit’s.”

  Leo’s gloved hands jabbed and yanked at the air like a conductor’s, his movements muscular and choppy. His gauntlets were a heavy choice for handler pulse gloves, yet he was fast, and his arc responded in blurs, shifting through ship controls and data. Every handler had a unique style; some liked to touch the arc, some didn’t. Thwip watched Leo, more interested in his technique than his task.

  “In my previous station, my Novas did not utilize chems quite so much. It’s too much for you this early. You can decide for yourself later.”