By Dawn's Early Light

by Jason Fuesting

  Eric opened the white hatch barring his way to the bridge, stepped through, and sealed it behind him. He ducked past several corpses in blue uniforms on the way up the ladder well, making sure he did not disturb the radiation scarred remains. He pulled himself up the ladderwell, shivering as he passed more bodies. He paused to adjust his suit’s temperature upward.

  Too many bodies around here, this place is a goddamn morgue.

  After the first flight of steep stairs, he noticed the flooring was no longer a pale blue, but a darker blue with white flecks in it.

  Heh, wonder what that means?

  He continued up a number of flights before a plaque had caught his attention.

  “05-75-1-C, Bridge,” Eric said to himself as he fit the entry tool into the door’s fitting. Eric paused, looking at the hatch on the opposite side. The plaque label, “CIC”, meant little to him, but the hatch was conspicuously armored and someone had painted “Combat Information Center” on it. “Heh. Well, she’s a warship for sure. I’ll check the bridge first.”

  Aside from the half dozen corpses, the bridge was spotless, cramped, still as a crypt, and completely dark. Enough space had been left open between each of the work stations to allow the operators to get to their station and little else. Like the previous corpses, these new ones did not appear to have struggled. Eric started to poke about when a realization struck him. Five of the bodies were strapped into chairs. One sat in a chair half slewed around like he had been talking to the corpse behind him, the only corpse not secured to a chair. The ones in the seats had simple polished black boots, black belts with tarnished white buckles, possibly silver at one point, and the lettering on their coveralls was white. The odd corpse out wore what probably had been expensive looking shoes, a light brown belt with a brass buckle, and gold lettering on the name tapes.

  Eric reached moved around the floating corpse, trying not to touch the stern-faced man. US Navy. No clue what that silver insignia on the collar means. It’s got wings, so maybe he’s the pilot? Captain maybe? Gotta be captain. Eric glanced down at the nametape as he checked the man’s pockets. Morneault. Yep, captain.

  “Sorry, Captain Morneault, just checking for keys. No disrespect intended.” Eric fished a necklace made from linked silver metallic balls from around the corpse’s neck. A set of keys and two stamped metal plates swung from the end of it. Eric read the stamped lettering on the tarnished plates. His brain refused to process the last line. Morneault, Matthew, 210-42-3521, AB+, Christian, January 30, 1965.

  “Nineteen sixty-five? They had to be using a different calendar.” Eric stuffed the chain in a belt-pouch and stepped off the bridge. If I were the captain, where would I have my quarters? He looked at the ladder up. Nah, if the main airlocks are on the main level, why would I want to walk farther? Still need to be near the bridge though. No other doors on this level, let’s try the next one down, shall we?

  He traced his path back down another deck and looked about at the doors near the ladderwell.

  Ah, here we are, CO’s stateroom.

  Eric tried the door and found it locked. The key he’d taken from the Captain fit smoothly into the physical override for the electronic lock and Eric let himself in. The far wall had been covered by a large version of the red and white striped ensign with gold fringe. A simple bed filled another wall and a desk with shelves filled the other. Eric looked over the obvious computer workstation, and then pored over the small items on the desk. Finding a photo of a woman and a few children, he slowly shook his head.

  I wonder if they knew what happened to their father.

  His eyes were then drawn to a large poster on the wall alongside the bookshelf. The writing was warped, like someone had tried to write without lifting their pen, but readable.

  “In Congress, July Fourth, Seventeen Seventy-Six,” Eric chuckled to himself about the date before reading further aloud. “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Hmm. Earth, huh? Interesting.”

  Eric jerked, half bringing his improvised club to bear when his headset crackled, spitting only noise.

  Pascal must’ve gotten in. I should go. He glanced at the next poster. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

  Eric’s radio crackled again. He could almost make out something intelligible.

  Got to go.

  As he turned about, he grabbed the computer tablet off the desk. His radio crackled again as he stepped out into the hall.

  “…drich. Pasc… do… copy, over?”

  “Pascal, this is Friedrich. I copy.”

  “…you broken… clear.”

  Eric sighed, cursed his radio, and began moving as fast as he could down to the quarterdeck where he transmitted again. “Pascal, Friedrich. Do you copy, over?”

  “...rich, Pascal. Much clearer. What’s… status?”

  “Your signal’s still breaking up, wait a second,” Eric replied as he worked open the hatch back to the airlock he’d entered from. As he opened the door, his headset crackled again.

  “Friedrich, Pascal, how copy, over?”

  “Pascal, Friedrich, signal’s clear. Mine?”

  “Clear now. What’s your status?”

  “I found the bridge and the captain’s quarters. You won’t believe what’s up here.”

  “What’d you find?”

  “Well, first off, this isn’t a privateer. It’s a warship.”

  “Good, and?”

  “The crew’s all dead. Looks like radiation burns, but the only thing radioactive is the bodies. They’re barely above background. That’s not what’s crazy though.”

  The lieutenant sighed, “What’s crazy, Friedrich?”

  “The captain’s ident lists his birthday as nineteen sixty-five.”

  Pause. “Say again.”

  “You heard me. Nineteen sixty-five.”

  “That’s not possible. That’s--”

  “I know. It’s December third, 216 PE. That date has to be from before humanity came to the stars. Lieutenant, this ship’s from Earth!”

  “Hey, let’s not get carried away. In fact, keep that to yourself until we can go talk to the captain and see what he says. I highly doubt this ship is five hundred years old, not when its design includes artificial grav. Grav plates have only been around for-- Hold on, command channel.” Eric glanced back at the corpse whose pistol he’d taken as seconds ticked by. “Friedrich, get your ass down here, fast. Fortune’s leaving in five minutes, with or without us.”

  Eric nearly stumbled. “What?”

  “You heard me. Beat feet, spacer. Captain thinks there’s someone else out there and he’s spooling up the drive.”

  Shit shit shit!

  Eric disengaged his maglocks and launched himself down the passageway. Using the bar to correct his trajectory, Eric sailed most of the length of the corridor in a fraction of the time it had taken him to walk it. He nearly bounced off the wall at the end of the hallway, but engaged his maglocks to keep from flying off.

  “Hurry up, this way,” the lieutenant yelled. He stood on the inside of the airlock door. As Eric ducked through, Pascal worked the next door and waited for Friedrich to seal his door before opening the next. Working together, they managed to maintain the atmospheric integrity of the ship while moving quickly. Eric stopped to cycle the outside airlock shut, but Pascal pointed towards Eric’s maneuvering pack and moved
to cycle the airlock shut himself.

  “We’ve got two minutes. We’re good, Friedrich. Had them leave a sled for us,” Pascal said as the airlock door slid shut.

  Pascal pushed off, leaving Eric to follow him through the chimney several seconds behind.

  Pascal cleared the jagged maw of the tunnel entrance and immediately spat, “Son of a bitch.”

  “What?” Eric asked. Pascal didn’t need to answer, he saw for himself as he drifted free of the ice. The Fortune was moving away at speed. “Motherfucker. They left us!”

  “I know, I know. Give me a second.”

  Eric saw a small flash out of the corner of his eye followed by an ephemeral line of violet motes that traced an almost perfect path to the Fortune.

  Lieutenant Pascal’s shoulders slumped and his helmet settled in the palm of his hand. “Fuck me.”

  “What was--,” Eric started to ask.

  “Railgun.”

  “Fuck.”

  Eric’s headset blared static into his ears.

  “Attention pirate vessel, this is Captain Hines of the PMV Shrike. By the authority granted to me by the Protectorate of Man, I order you to stand to and prepare to be boarded.”

  The Fortune’s engines flared, going to maximum burn. Flickering pinpricks of light along the hull caught Eric’s eye as the Fortune began to veer into a sharp turn. The Fortune’s point defense turrets were spitting a hail of slugs toward the pirate hunter. Shock froze Eric’s gut.

  What do they hope to do, piss them off?

  There was a brief flash as a rail slug slammed through the Fortune’s unarmored hull at over a hundred kilometers a second. Eric blinked as the ship he’d grown up on came apart in slow motion. Gasses escaped through ruptured plating as the ship bent in on itself and spewed a cloud of glowing dust and debris. Two engines guttered out, unbalancing forward thrust. The wreck began a lazy, twisting cartwheel. Several heartbeats later, a brilliant, blinding actinic flash replaced the blackness of space as the fusion containment dewars failed. It was horrible. It was beautiful.

  Dumbstruck, Eric and Pascal could do little but watch.

  “Any surviving pirate personnel activate your personal beacons if you have them or transmit in the clear. You will be afforded all legal protections set forth in the Charter by the Protectorate of Man until you can be tried for your crimes. You have fifteen minutes before we depart.”

  Decisions

  Eric’s mouth hung open in shock as the flash abated, leaving shadows of debris amidst an expanding, glowing orb of cooling gas. He blinked, failing to come to terms with the horror before him. Something tugged at his arm, drawing his attention. Lit by his helmet’s internal displays, Lieutenant Pascal’s serious visage demanded his attention.

  Pascal tapped at a metal plate that formed the top of his visor. What? Oh, the contact transducer! Eric leaned forward, pressing an identical plate on his helmet to Pascal’s.

  “No radio, Friedrich. In fact, turn your unit off, contact only,” Pascal ordered.

  Eric nodded what little he could and shut down his helmet radio. “What are you thinking, sir?”

  “What am I thinking?” Pascal’s laugh was pinched and his eyes, ringed with red, were fully dilated. Beads of sweat threatened to pull away from the man’s face. “What am I thinking, Friedrich? I’m thinking we’re absolutely--,” Pascal blinked and the audio connection hissed as he shook his head. Pascal’s breathing steadied. “Sorry, sorry, Eric. Can’t afford to lose it now. Look, neither of us are engineers, right?”

  “No?”

  “Right, so we’re not likely to rig anything on this wreck, right?”

  “Well, I guess not?”

  “And how long do you think it will be before anyone comes looking for us?”

  “Months, if ever?”

  “Okay, so staying here, we die. The Protectorate will probably execute us for being pirates, so if we go with them, we die.”

  “What do we do then?” Eric asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

  “Well, if we stay here, we die from hypothermia, anoxia, dehydration, or starvation. If we go with the Shrike, we face probable execution. Depending on which end of what law they determine we’ve broken, it could be a criminal execution, so firing squad, hanging, or torture. Though, it could be a civil execution, so something they think is ‘humane.’”

  “Humane? How is an execution humane?”

  Pascal snorted, “You’d be surprised what people can fool themselves into thinking, Friedrich. Especially when someone they’ve come to trust helps them get there.” Pascal paused as his eyes lost focus. He blinked and stared Eric in the eye. “I’m not the Captain, Eric. With the Fortune gone, I’m technically not even in charge anymore. So, freeze to death on this chunk of ice or take our chances with the Protectorate?”

  “How likely are we to get executed?”

  “Only slightly less likely than you are to die if I put my knife through your O2 line right now.”

  “Well, at least we’ll be warm on the Shrike, right?” Eric asked with a strained laugh. God, we are so fucked. So terribly, terribly fucked.

  Pascal gave him a sad grin. “I can’t even promise that.”

  “Well, shit.”

  Pascal’s eyes flicked to one of his helmet displays. “Look, we’ve got another few minutes, so think it over.”

  “Fuck it, LT. If we’re going to die, I’d like to at least get another meal first. Skipped breakfast before we did that EVA. I’m starving.” Eric gave a half-hearted smile.

  “So we’re taking our chances?”

  Eric nodded.

  “Are you sure? These people are not what you think they are.” With Eric’s questioning look Pascal continued, “It’s hard to explain, Eric. You’ve always been a pirate, right? The average Protectorate citizen is afraid of being free like that. They’d deny that to their last breath though. They’ve begged their leaders make them slaves and then convinced themselves they’re better off for it. They don’t think like you or me. You are either a servant of the state or an obstacle to their perfect world.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Eric, they’ve been at war with the Confederation off and on ever since the Confeds split. Anyone not under their control is a threat to their idea of a perfect society. Pirates like us have survived for this long because those two have been eyeballing each other and not us. The moment someone gets serious about cleaning up the Reach, we’re done. Does this make sense? Our idea of right and wrong is a foreign concept to them.”

  “I guess, sir?”

  “Enough of the ‘sir’ crap, Eric. If I’m going contact them, you have to understand what you’re in for, and you have to know what the story is going to be.”

  “The story, uh, Pascal?”

  “My name is-- Don’t laugh; my parent’s named me Blaise.”

  Eric snorted and said, “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, you have no idea. The story is going to be really simple, but you have to commit it to heart. You have to stick to it. Any slip and we’re both dead. Got it?”

  “Okay.”

  “First, the truth. Our life support systems were damaged and we were out here harvesting ice to replenish what we could. You were part of the work crew that was reeling in the ice.”

  “I was.”

  “You were. The best lie has just enough of the truth in it to be believable. If anyone asks why we ended up on this chunk of ice, it was bigger and we thought we could get more in a shorter amount of time. That’s bullshit, but they’ll buy it. Got that much?”

  Eric nodded.

  “Now the lie: you and I were part of that work crew and neither of us was in charge. I cannot stress this hard enough: you and I were not in charge.” Eric couldn’t miss the emphasis on the ‘not’.

  “I got it, but why?”

  “Because they hold field executions for pirate officers, not trials.”

  “Oh,” Eric gulped.

  “Yeah, ‘oh’ is right. As far a
s they care, a midshipman like you is close enough to officer. So, what was that again?”

  “Neither of us was in charge.”

  “Right. We’re both forced conscripts, remember that.”

  “Okay.”

  “Not ‘okay’, Eric. You need to believe this is the truth because until we get to the other side, it is the truth. No slipping. You remember that disciplinary board right after we left port? The one for Banks?”

  “Yeah, that asshole lied straight to the Captain’s face. I saw him do it.”

  “And didn’t blink an eye, like he was singing praises to the Almighty. We’ll have to be even more convincing. They’ll separate us when we get on the ship. Question us. Beat us. Even drug us. They’ll do their best to keep you awake. They might not feed you, and your cell is going to be as cold or as hot as they can make it and then they’ll swing the other direction to keep you off balance. It’s all to get you turned around; make you despair. They’ll lie. Expect them to tell you I turned on you. If they think you have family or friends, they’ll use everything they can to get you to talk. Hold to the story, no matter what they say. Got that? No. Matter. What.”

  “I got it, Blaise. I got it.”

  Pascal’s eyes wandered for a moment.

  “What’s that?” Pascal asked.

  “What’s what?” Eric craned his head down in his helmet.

  “This,” Pascal asked, pulling the black pistol from Eric’s belt pouch.

  “That? I found it on the Gadsden.”

  Pascal moved to toss the weapon.

  “Wait!” Eric grabbed Pascal’s wrist.

  “What? We don’t want them to know the ship is here, Eric. If we live, we can come back and take our time looking around. Maybe even try to get her free and working again. This is evidence.”

  “Well, shit,” Eric frowned. “Still, don’t just toss it off into space.” Pascal raised an eyebrow. “If that ship’s from Earth, then if you found the right collector it’d bring enough money to retire on, right? Besides that, it’s a piece of history!”