by Richard Fox
Remi stood outside Cosima’s door. He flexed his feet against the floor, then tightened his muscle groups one at a time from his calves up to his neck. Duty as a Guardsman was mostly boredom, punctuated with moments of sheer terror. He’d learned several tricks to keep his mind and body alert during the many, many boring periods. It didn’t really lessen the boredom, but it kept the cramps away.
Cosima’s door opened, and the princess walked out wearing camouflage fatigues, the bottoms of the pants unbloused over the boots. She had a patrol cap over her head, the brim turned up at a ridiculous angle.
Years of impeccable uniform standards in the Sidonian army and King’s Guard demanded he reach out to correct the many errors in Cosima’s dress. He wasn’t a drill sergeant, he was a bodyguard.
“You,” she waved a hand at Remi, then put her hands on her hips, “take me to the place you shoot your guns. Teach me.”
“You mean the firing range, my lady?”
“Yes. There. Let’s go, chop-chop!” She clapped her hands for emphasis.
“My lady…may I suggest a more appropriate dress?”
“What, this isn’t right? I can soldier.” She saluted. Instead of the standard straight right hand to the right eyebrow, she bent her fingers toward her palm and bounced her hand against her forehead.
“No, my lady.” Remi struggled to keep his frustration at bay. Was she trying to upset him?
She tried again, this time with her fingers spread and thumb tucked against her palm.
“No.”
She turned her palm toward Remi and touched her fingertips to her temple, then swung her hand across her face.
“Maybe if you were an air force officer. My lady, there are…at least twenty-three errors in your uniform, the first being that you haven’t sworn an enlistment or officer’s oath to serve. Can your handmaid prepare some khakis, perhaps?”
Lana crossed her arms over her chest.
“I gave her the day off to visit family. I suppose that was a mistake.” She turned her nose up and went back into her quarters.
She reappeared several minutes later in khaki pants and a safari jacket.
“Does this satisfy you? I don’t even know why I’m asking you. Go! Take me to your gun place,” she said, waving him on.
Remi tapped their movement into his gauntlet and went to the elevator. “Have you ever fired a weapon, my lady?” he asked
“A few times at the arcade, games like Space Cop and Bug Fest. Are they that different than the real thing?”
“Yes, quite different. What prompted this new interest, if I may ask?” The elevator opened as they approached. Remi tapped a three-digit code into the control panel to take them to the armory. Elevators in the palace could travel laterally as well as vertically.
“I’m tired of sitting in my tower, thinking of new ways to make myself look pretty,” she said.
She tapped her foot as they traveled into the basement where the King’s Guard kept their armory. Cosima looked at the pistol on Remi’s hip, secure in a leather holster.
“Let me see your gun.” She reached for the weapon.
Remi slapped against the holster and twisted away from her. Cosima brought her hands up to her chin in surprise.
“It is not a toy,” he said firmly. He relaxed and smiled at her. “Forgive me, my lady. We are trained to keep positive control over our weapons at all times. I understand there are no pulser weapons on Styria Station, correct?”
Cosima brought her hands down and stood up as straight as she could.
“That is correct. Projectile weapons on space stations could hit something critical or puncture the hull. We have no shootings on the station. The occasional stabbing, yes. But never a shooting.”
The doors opened, and a guard stood up from behind a ballistic shield and saluted Cosima. She attempted to return the gesture and mangled it into a little wave to the guard as they passed him.
“My lady, may I suggest you refrain from saluting. It isn’t required or expected of you,” Remi said.
“I thought I was getting the hang of it.”
“No, my lady.”
The pistol range was a series of lanes partitioned by sound baffles. Black lines extended the length of the range from each firing position, with range lines every ten yards. The range smelled of ozone and brass built up over a hundred years of continuous use by the military and Guardsmen living and working in the palace.
Remi took Cosima to a lane in the middle of the range, took a pair of headphones from the wall, and handed them to Cosima, then grabbed himself a pair from another lane.
“These will cancel out high decibel noise, but we can talk normally.” He pressed a palm against a sound baffle. A circle traced around his hand as his palm print and DNA were logged into the range’s computer. A panel slid aside at the base of the shelf, and a drawer with a pistol and three magazines opened.
Remi beat Cosima’s grab for the pistol, and he held it in front of her, his finger off the trigger.
“This is a J-90 service pistol. It holds eight variable penetration rounds per clip and is accurate out to one hundred yards. The first and most important rule you must know is that you never point this weapon at something you do not intend to shoot. Understand?” he asked.
Cosima nodded and grasped the pistol by the handle. The pistol almost fell to the shelf as she struggled to hold its weight.
“Oops,” she said with a nervous laugh. She picked up a magazine and slid it into the handle and gave it a slap. The pistol vibrated in her hand as it automatically cycled a round into the chamber.
“Range, known distance target, ten yards,” Remi said. A hologram of a black silhouette of a man appeared above the ten-yard line. “Flip the safety to ‘single’ and aim for the center mass and gently squeeze the trigger.”
Cosima held the pistol up with both hands and pulled the trigger, nothing happened. She pulled at it harder.
“Safety,” Remi said.
Cosima muttered a few choice miners’ curses and took the weapon off “safe.” She re-aimed the weapon and squeezed the trigger.
A bullet fired with an electric snap, and the pistol jerked in her hands. She glanced at the display on the shelf, which didn’t show a hit on the target. She fired off three more shots, still no hits on the target.
“There must be something wrong with this gun,” she said, pouting.
“May I?” Remi took the weapon from her and aimed it at the silhouette. “Range. Fifty yards.” The hologram vanished and reappeared farther away. Remi fired three shots; each hit center mass within a thumbnail’s distance from each other.
He shifted the pistol to his left hand. “Range. One hundred yards.” Three more shots hit the target in the head.
“Show off,” she said.
“Range, reset.” Remi flipped the pistol in his grip and handed it back to her, handle first.
She examined the weapon in her hands. “Show me how you did that.”
“Square your feet, a little more than shoulder-width apart. Nonfiring hand at the base of the handle for support.” Remi tapped his foot against Cosima’s to get her feet wider and took her by the wrist to extend her arms slightly. “Line up the target with the front and rear sites, then squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it. The shot should almost come as a surprise.”
Cosima’s face narrowed in concentration, and a shot snapped from the pistol.
A hit on the edge of the silhouette’s shoulder pinged on the shelf display.
“Ha! Got him,” she said.
“Yes, he’ll need at least a bandage to recover. Hit center mass, my lady. That will cause the round to detonate within the target and eliminate the threat.”
Cosima looked at the pistol. “Did you say ‘detonate’?”
“Yes, the round requires the presence of blood and flesh to detonate. The exit wound from this caliber bullet will leave an exit wound the size of your fist. One shot is normally enough,” Remi said.
“Oh.” The
weapon trembled in her hand. The idea of shooting an actual person and not a bloodless hologram brought a level of realism she hadn’t considered. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
She lowered the pistol to the shelf, but Remi cupped his palm under her hands.
“There is nothing wrong with saving your own life, or innocent lives around you,” he said.
Cosima nodded and raised the pistol. Her next two shots hit an arm and the lower abdomen.
“There, you’re getting it.”
“Can I have my own gun now?”
Remi shook his head. “Let’s not be hasty. Actual pulser shots will disrupt your body shield, making you more vulnerable.”
“You mean these are fakes?”
“Perfect ballistic and recoil simulations, no different than firing the real thing.” He reached for a magazine on the table. “Now let me show you a trick to reloading faster.”
“It doesn’t even shoot?” Cosima asked. She tapped the pistol against the shelf, then put her free hand over the muzzle.
Remi snatched the gun away from her and roared, “That is not a toy!”
His shout echoed up and down the range. Cosima backed away from him and bumped against the sound baffle.
He set the pistol down and looked away from her. “I’m sorry, my lady. It’s my fault for not explaining things to you correctly. Please forgive me,” he said quietly.
“Could it have hurt me?”
“No. Even if it had been a live round, your shield would have protected you. We’re trained to treat everything like it’s real. Every threat, every danger. I overreacted.” He removed the magazine from the pistol and set it back in the drawer below the shelf.
“Then don’t you snap at me! I am Cosima Elizabeth Melanie Zollern, and I’m about to be the queen of this planet. Unless you want to-to-to peel potatoes for the rest of your career, you’d better let me do just about anything I want.” She poked a finger against Remi’s chest.
“Yes, my lady,” Remi said.
A message beeped on his gauntlet.
“The trade fleet is about to arrive,” he read. “Prince Francis would like you to join him on the arch observation deck to watch their hyperspace transition.”
“Then let’s get up there.” She turned and stalked away. She got three steps before she whirled around and said, “But first I need to change.”
****
Two arches crisscrossed in a single point over Sidonia City. An elevator shaft, hidden from view by a layer of holographic tiles that made it blend in to the sky when seen from the ground, connected the palace to the junction.
The junction, a slightly concave circle, was large enough for a dome that housed antennae and satellite dishes and an observation platform. The arches, their undersides camouflaged by the same technology that kept the elevator hidden, projected the bombardment shields that kept the city safe from orbital attack. While citizens appreciated the defense, no one wanted to see a constant reminder that death from above was a real threat during humanity’s settlement across the galaxy.
The hidden shields served their purpose day in and day out without much thought from those in Sidonia City, to no one’s complaint or consternation.
The only time the junction and shield came to attention was when a trade fleet returned to Sidonia, then the noble Houses, expecting to see their ships full of goods traded for art, fought for a spot on the tiny observation deck to see the fleet the moment it translated from hyperspace.
Getting a spot on the junction to see a translation was something of a status symbol, and the noble Houses that paid the exorbitant fee to gain access doled out tickets to only those who’d earned a spot through superior business acumen or the lottery of birth. Any ship captain or artist who “stood on junction” was assured their pick in trade contracts and commissions for the rest of their lives.
Cosima was the last to arrive, and she exited the elevator to soft applause from the dozen men and women gathered there.
“My lady,” a rotund man with a baldpate and extraordinary muttonchops bowed to her, “I am Helmut von Boelcke. Let me be the first to welcome you to junction.”
Cosima, wearing a pale blue dress over a black body glove for warmth, nodded her head to Helmut. She knew him by reputation; her father had her watch a teleconference with his House a year ago when their House refused to release a pair of artists from their indenture contracts. House von Boelcke claimed the artists hadn’t repaid their advances through some trickery with basket accounting and compound interest.
The conversation had been one-sided. Her father read House von Boelcke the riot act for deceptive practices and demanded they release the artists. When the House demurred, her father cut off their supply of Stahlium, which would have led to quick economic ruin for them. The House didn’t appeal to the king, who’d have looked into the contract in question and likely done worse things to them than take away their Stahlium. House von Boelcke released the artists…and quickly removed similar contract provisions from all their other outstanding contracts.
“Sir von Boelcke, pleasure to see you. What are you expecting to arrive?” she asked.
“Auto harvesters for our almond orchards, protocells for cancer treatment, and a few luxury items,” he said, a twinkle in his eye.
Ever the one to brag, she thought.
She caught sight of her fiancé across the deck, speaking intently with a tall, blonde woman, who was dressed most immodestly for high society, by Cosima’s standards.
She excused herself from Helmut and stopped in the middle of the observation deck. At the apex of the city’s shield, the sky opened up around her. Distant storms stretched into the upper atmosphere where trade winds scalped the tops of thunderheads into wisps, tearing away the might of the storm. The setting sun cast multihued bands in shades of fire across the Tauern Mountains stretching over the horizon. The first lights of the small towns along the tube lines running to and from the capital mirrored the stars emerging from the darkening sky.
Cosima crept toward the railing and dared to look down at the entire city and its radial and circular highways dappled with lights from ground cars moving along their routes. Her stomach lurched into her throat. Vertigo was a new feeling for her.
“I don’t believe we’ve ever had someone from House Zollern stand on junction before,” Francis said from behind her.
Cosima spun around and focused on the prince’s face, hoping to quell her dizzy spell. “We have no need to come here. We can see the transitions quite well from Styria Station,” she said. A breeze whipped through her hair, and she clamped on to the railing with both hands.
Prince Francis chuckled. “No worries, my lovely. I could jump from here, and the shield would carry me down as gently as a mother’s arms. We had to install that feature right after the shield went active—too many birds hitting it.” Francis took a swig from a flask and grimaced as the liquid burned its way down. He offered the flask to her.
“No, thank you.” Alcohol and heights struck her as a poor combination.
“Father used to bring us all up here for translations,” he said. “Quinn—rest his soul—always teased that he knew the code for the shield, claimed he’d say a magic word and throw me right through it. Vincent would complain to father and fight with Quinn when he’d try and lift me over the railing.” He took another swig. “Now it’ll be you and I up here for every translation. At least we won’t have to wave.”
“Where is Prince Vincent? I haven’t met him yet,” she said. Another gust of wind tugged at her earrings and brought tears to her eyes. Francis’s warm arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her close to him, their sides touching. He smelled of booze and old smoke.
“He’s in the bunker, pretending he’s some sort of secret squirrel looking for spies. They’re around every bush if you ask him. Father’s illness got worse while I was away for the negotiations. He’s been running the kingdom ever since. Not to worry, you and I will be king and queen, with all the pomp and ci
rcumstance, in no time.”
“We could go up to my station, watch the translation from the star docks,” she said.
“Ha! I’ll be damned if I ever leave atmosphere again. Space is so miserable.” He made a poor attempt to hide a sidelong glance at the blonde in the impractical dress, who doted over an old, and wealthy, ship captain from House Brunonen. “And it’s good to be the king.”
“Translation!” a noble called out, pointing to the sky.
A silver streak wavered in space, like a comet’s tail in reverse. Slowing from hyperspace skewed the fabric of the cosmos. Ships left a path that writhed like an aurora for a few seconds before vanishing back into whatever tortured physics birthed it.
More streaks came into being, as quickly as the meteor showers that marked the beginning of spring for the planet’s northern hemisphere. The nobles cheered; their proverbial ships had come in. The influx of wealth and news from the wider galaxy had returned to sustain Sidonia’s economy and curiosity until the next trade fleet.
“Watch this, Cosima, it won’t happen again in our lifetime,” Francis said.
A streak as wide as Styria Station appeared, stretching across the entire sky as the massive ship slowed as easily as an antique steam train trying to stop going downhill. Cosima could actually see the vessel, running lights beaming up and down the flanks of a gargantuan vessel with a massive hangar through it. The ship looked like a metallic whale shark that swam through Sidonia’s deepest oceans.
It must have been three times the size of Styria Station. Smaller craft translated around it, forming around the huge ship like lampreys.
Silence fell over the nobles as they took in the spectacle.
“That, ladies and gentlemen,” Francis announced to everyone on the observation deck, “is the Chaebol Corporation, and it will build Sidonia’s first jump gate to the Gaia system.” He took a deep sip from his flask. “Drink up! We’re all going to be filthy rich.”
Cosima pulled away from Francis and gazed up at the growing construction fleet. She didn’t see a bright future in those stars; she saw a future of uncertainty.
