Steal the Stars

by Mac Rogers

  “That’s … unsettlingly honest. Dak?”

  Say no say no you have to say no

  I felt a little like Andy, staring off into nowhere, not more than a few feet from where I was standing right now. Right before I put him out of his misery. Only I wasn’t staring off into nowhere, I was staring at you.

  “Only if I’m the other one.”

  “What?!” Patty barked. I wondered if this spaceship had ever seen this much human squabbling before.

  “Non-negotiable,” I said bluntly.

  “Well, Dak, I don’t know that I concur,” Harrison said.

  “Not for nothing, I also don’t concur!” Patty echoed.

  “Due respect to the parties involved,” I replied, “but this is bullshit. If Sierra wanted to change the game this much, they should’ve given us a month. Am I wrong, Lloyd?”

  I threw him that question as a tether to start reeling him back into constructive conversation, even while part of my brain was shrieking at me for what I was agreeing to do. “Uh? No, no, you’re—! That, that, obviously, is not—”

  “But instead it’s Monday,” I went on. “Fucking Monday.”

  Harrison was staring me down. “That’s correct.”

  “Well, I’m not usually big on ‘I wouldn’t ask you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself,’ but every once in a while it’s the way to go,” I stared back.

  “So now I have to choose between ‘I disagree’ and ‘I trust your judgment?’”

  “They can’t both be true,” I shrugged.

  “You know damn well they can be.” Harrison glared … and then something in him broke. The staring contest ended. He sighed and admitted defeat. Once again I realized this was probably how he looked before opening whatever drawer in his office contained …

  “Who do you want for the backups?” he muttered.

  “Anyone but Patty,” I said. “If this goes totally south you need someone you can trust at the helm.”

  I saw something pass under Patty’s face at that. Some flicker of gratitude? Of—

  “Can you get me names by end of day?” Harrison asked.

  I nodded. And inside, Practical Dak was screaming her death throes. She wasn’t gone yet, but she’d just been given the news it was terminal.

  “Great,” Harrison said. He slapped his thighs halfheartedly, his version of banging a gavel. “Then class dismissed.” He exited the engine room and squeezed out of the ship.

  “I—I guess I’ve got my work cut out for me,” Lloyd intoned. He wasn’t looking at us, instead staring somewhere around our feet, whatever whirred around in his brain already sucking up more and more juice. “I’ll need to get your, your suit sizes so I can…” He chuckled nervously. “It’s like we’re planning a wedding.”

  Jesus Christ, Lloyd.

  Make us something matching. And if we end up in a jolly colored box we can end up together. Together forever maybe one on top of the other so we melt into each other in one of those boxes after Sammy Sculpin takes us away—

  Lloyd made his way out of the ship. I followed quickly thereafter, not wanting to be alone with either of you—one because I sensed she was about to give me an earful, and the other because …

  I was right. Patty grabbed my arm as soon as I was out of the ship. She’d slipped out right behind me and I didn’t even notice. “This is bullshit. You give this to someone else. You’re chief.”

  I looked at her. I didn’t want to have this conversation. “Right,” I said, “so I get to exempt myself from toilets and third shift and everything where you have to stand up all day. But this … is another kind of thing.”

  That seemed simple enough. Inarguable. Patty knew I wasn’t going to have some eleventh-hour conversion to her way of thinking. So she gave up … in her own way.

  “Look, I’m not gonna start getting all weepy or whatever—”

  “Why not? I might die.”

  She studied me for a moment, suddenly a kind of serious I wasn’t used to seeing from her. I wasn’t sure what she was going to say next and a wave of anxiety rumbled through me.

  “You know,” she said, her voice low. “If we were ever like, goddamn, deployed or whatever…”

  “You imagine? At my age?” I laughed, trying to dispel the sincerity she was conjuring.

  “… I’d follow you anywhere. I’d follow you into anything.”

  She looked into my eyes for what seemed like five uncomfortable lifetimes.

  “And yet,” I finally managed, “you won’t try my falafel.”

  “I mean,” she said, reading my eyes, her voice still low, “is it a euphemism, or—?” I had to smile.

  Oh thank God we’re back

  “Pick two more names for me,” I told her. “Actually three. For all we know it could weigh a literal ton.”

  “It’s gonna be all assholes. If you’re all gonna maybe die we might as well make it a good thing. “

  “Then definitely put Grant on the list.”

  “Yeah, well,” she chuckled mournfully. “It should be me. It should be you and me.”

  “Then who’d feed my cat?”

  “You have a cat?”

  “Maybe?” I shrugged. “I’m not home much.”

  Patty laughed—hell, maybe she was wondering herself what creatures might be living in her home unnoticed, who knows.

  “I’ll send you the names,” she said after a sigh, and then she walked away. Her ponytail jounced proudly like it had just secured a prom date of its dreams.

  I was going to walk away too. I had things to do, and then a night to enjoy—maybe my last real free evening before we went into overdrive to get this nonsense ready. I was going to walk away … but I didn’t. I just stood there—like I was just standing in the shower now—just stood there until the Guardshift bell rang.

  You came out of Object E and saw me standing there. We had maybe two seconds to look at each other. Then:

  “Hangar duty,” you said. “Northwest quadrant.”

  “Have fun.”

  You walked past me and out of the Tent.

  * * *

  I TURNED off the shower. The hot water had run out and my skin was red and patched from the heat. A dark, bumpy rash was forming irregularly over my body … like I was covered in something invasive and foreign.

  Tonight would be my one night to rest before we go round-the-clock, straight through to Monday. I knew I should sleep. That would be the practical thing to do. Instead I got dressed, went to a bar I’d never gone to before, and hoped someone would start some shit.

  7

  I’LL SKIP the montage. Suffice it to say, I rode Lloyd’s ass until it was raw and it paid off. By Saturday, close to midnight, we had six new Lloyd Suits and what looked like a jumbo duffel bag all treated lovingly with N5. The entire Hangar had been cleared out, too—all the stations of the Bazaar had been either pushed far away or stored in secured rooms upstairs.

  You and I stood on the floor, fumbling with our seals. Having only ever sealed someone else it was a bit of a challenge figuring out how to do it to ourselves. It felt like every step we took should have yielded a graceful, gravity-free bounce.

  Patty came by to give us shit—“You idiots look like you’re on an episode of Flash Gordon,” to which you replied, “Do you really think there were space suits on Flash Gordon?” and earned a faceful of middle fingers—and for a few seconds I was actually enjoying myself. Then Harrison and Lloyd trudged over and ruined everything.

  Lloyd had two new pairs of gloves in his hands. He held them out to us, which we took … in our already gloved hands.

  “Lloyd … noticed something,” Harrison grunted. This led to a typically Lloydian explanation:

  “So … the basic principle behind N5, as I elucidated to some of you in the past—and which I believe, obviously, has been largely validated—is based on the conjecture that the engine room’s shielding effect has nothing to do with the thickness of the walls. After all, the Harp does drain the base every ti
me it spins up. But it only drains people who aren’t shielded by those walls. So something in those walls is acting as a kind of filter, blocking the most destructive elements of the Harp, presumably to protect Moss in flight.”

  “N5, Lloyd, yes, we all know this.” Harrison had his arms crossed over his chest, looking very much like a detective studying his last corpse before retirement. “Just tell them—”

  Lloyd nodded, then made a gesture that somehow retracted the nod. “Well—strictly speaking—N5 is a synthesized version of the original substance we sampled from the engine-room walls. There was always the danger that N5 would fail to completely replicate the effect, but of course, three dogs and myself are alive and well, so—”

  Patty was in no mood. “What the fuck is up with the extra gloves?”

  “Well. Heh. The, uh, the new concern—or, or the X factor, I guess would be equally apt—is”—and here he chose his words carefully and methodically, as if he were posing the question to himself on a blackboard—“what … would … happen … if … the N5 solution comes into direct contact with the Harp itself.” We all looked at each other. “Have you noticed the base the Harp rests in keeps the Harp from touching the floor? The floor is coated with the same substances that cover the walls and the door.”

  Oh.

  Shit.

  You, Patty, and I exchanged understanding looks. If this N5 substance worked as kryptonite to the Harp’s potency, then that meant—

  “But, of course, I don’t know! There’s no time to develop—much less implement—testing protocols, but we can’t at this time rule out the possibility that it might dampen or even … nullify the Harp’s effects.”

  “Is that really the priority?” Patty asked.

  “Yes,” Harrison answered, before Lloyd could even open his mouth.

  “Over Dak’s safety?”

  “Patty: yes.” This time I answered.

  “The Harp has, overnight, become Haydon’s top interest in this facility. I can’t risk permanently compromising its functionality.” Harrison sounded depleted.

  “So,” you spoke up, sending the tiniest jolt of electricity through my body, “… these new gloves—the new-new ones…”

  “Yes, they are not treated. Well guessed, Mr. Salem,” Lloyd nodded.

  “But the other gloves you gave us are,” I added.

  Lloyd nodded again, sweating. He dabbed the back of his neck.

  “So, we have to get the Harp into the bag wearing these regular gloves.” This must have been the same way you laid out a gnarled assignment from superiors during your enlistment. “Which also means not letting it touch the outside of the bag, which has the same stuff on it—”

  “Oh my God,” Patty sighed.

  “And then we switch gloves?” I asked.

  “That means unsealing the regular gloves and then sealing the N5 gloves—”

  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me…” Patty fumed.

  “I’m sorry!” Lloyd was tired—I could tell a snap was imminent if we rode him much harder. I suddenly noticed the deep bags under his eyes—deeper than usual. “I’m … when there’s no lead time, no test trials … this is what happens!”

  “It’s fine,” I said, not meaning it.

  “It’s not fine!” Patty shot back, meaning it.

  “The Harp might not even Power-Up while we do this, Patty—it could be a total non-issue.”

  “Eat my ass,” Patty roared.

  “Maybe I do need to institute a more military-style culture here at Quill,” Harrison threatened with noticeable impotence.

  That’s when you jumped into the conversation.

  “We can do it.” You were nodding, your brows knit seriously, but there was something eager in your eyes.

  Patty turned on you. “Not your call!”

  “Give us an hour to practice. We’ll practice with the glove seals, we’ll get it so it’s second nature, and we’ll make it happen.”

  I wasn’t gaping at you. I’m sure I looked neutral and composed. But it felt like I was gaping.

  “Dak?” Harrison asked. Just for my opinion. Not because I was gaping. I wasn’t gaping.

  “One request, Lloyd,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah, certainly, anything within my power to, to—”

  “Can the real gloves and the bullshit gloves be, like, different colors?”

  His head ticked. He actually looked a little as if the smell of burning metal and black smoke were about to signify mechanical failure. Thankfully, it didn’t last more than a heartbeat.

  “Diff—yes. Yes. That’s definitely—that will be done, that will be implemented.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “Great,” you said.

  “Great,” Harrison said.

  Patty just glared.

  * * *

  A LITTLE while later it was just you and me. Practicing.

  We were alone in the Hangar. Lloyd was in the engine room, doing a final once-over. Patty and Harrison were in Bird’s Eye with the backups, giving them the need-to-know version of the assignment.

  Which just left you and me. Practicing.

  It felt wrong, being alone together in this great empty space. It felt wrong being alone with you in general, but like this? The two of us in, effectively, space suits, surrounded by an entire ocean of nothingness—the sort of palpable solitude that only being in a usually bustling place after hours can give you—it felt like a dream. The sort of dream you have right before you wake up to find you’re driving on the shoulder.

  We practiced. The bullshit gloves, painted in a slapdash coat of red, came off (“Bullshit gloves off,” you would echo). The real gloves, a metallic white, would come on (“Real gloves on”). And then we would seal ourselves at the wrists with a weirdly satisfying whoosh and buzz.

  Because anything could be treated with N5, the gloves themselves were actually just regular heavy-duty work gloves—the kind you’d use to move lumber with. But the more we worked with the seals the more I had a greater appreciation for the time Lloyd had spent on them.

  I could hear him in my head. Obviously, obviously, the seals had to keep whatever the Harp emits out. But quiz time: would that be a particle or a wave? Were layers of seal enough or did it have to be completely airtight? And how do you calibrate a tight enough seal that prevents anything from getting through, but not so tight as to restrict blood flow or movement?

  We sealed and unsealed ourselves again and again—enough times until we couldn’t keep pretending that we were doing it for any practical reasons anymore. We had it down.

  Even though we had the whole world to ourselves, we kept our voices low.

  “We doing this or not?” I finally asked. Referring to the Harp, of course.

  “I have a thought.”

  “You have a thought.” Again, I felt a faint current run through me.

  “Yeah. I had a stretch where I wore suits almost like these over in—”

  “No proper names,” I prodded. Gently. Quietly. So as to not disturb the nothingness.

  “Right. Let’s call it an … overseas event?”

  “Okay, let’s.”

  “They trained us to pair up and … seal each other instead of sealing ourselves.”

  “Because it’s faster?”

  “Like four seconds faster.”

  “I respect four seconds.”

  “It’s weird how much it is sometimes, right?”

  “It’s very, very weird,” I said. Okay, now we have an excuse. I unsealed my gloves.

  “Let’s try it. Seal mine.”

  “Okay … and … sealed.” Whoosh. Buzz. Then you did the same.

  “Hold your arms out,” I commanded. You did.

  “Yep.”

  “Sealed right … sealed left.”

  “Again?”

  “Yeah. Do me first.”

  “Unsealing left … unsealing right.”

  We kept practicing, our voices hushed and intimate in the cavernous emptiness. Only t
he sound of our gloves sealing, unsealing—our skins decomposing, recomposing—and I prayed the noise wasn’t loud enough to rouse whatever being was dreaming this unspeakably beautiful dream.

  * * *

  NINETY MINUTES later it was go-time. And still that feeling of dreamlike surreality persisted. I knew combat readiness, I knew adrenaline-heightened perception. This was different.

  Patty tested our comms and you and I made sure, two times each, that we could get into and out of Object E without abrading the suits.

  The Harp wasn’t due to power up again until sometime Monday, late afternoon, presumably when Haydon and his goons from Sierra were here to see the show, so this could all conceivably happen without incident. Still, tucked away in Bird’s Eye, Lloyd was all nerves, Patty was all teeth, Harrison was all tightly clenched sphincter.

  You and I slipped inside the ship one more time. Like we practiced. Like mist.

  The otherworldly glow inside felt appropriate to the moment.

  “Engine room?” you asked through your helmet’s speaker.

  I nodded and let you do the honors, opening up the door to the engine room with your long, thin arms. For the first time I wondered if maybe you and Moss weren’t secretly the same species.

  We walked into the engine room together and made our way to the Harp. It sat in its base, the non-beating heart of the ship, of this mystery.

  You and I knelt before it together in sync, our suits making artificial-sounding noises in the echo-resistant air. We gave the pins securing the Harp to its base an exploratory tug. They moved easily enough; they weren’t locked down in any way. So we should be able to do this no sweat.

  Like a dream.

  I had a moment to think how funny it was that such rudimentary technology kept this extraterrestrial marvel together—there didn’t have to be such similarities between our basic, physical laws of order, but here we were—and Patty’s voice came over the comm.

  “What’s your status, guys?” she asked from light years away.

  I confirmed we were in place, ready to pull the pins on her go. I confirmed we were wearing our bullshit gloves, with their slapdash red paint across them. I confirmed the giant duffel bag was open and ready to receive its cargo. I confirmed that we were clear on our directives.