Shadow Sun Seven

by Spencer Ellsworth

  “This one.” Kalia taps the latest maintenance hatch they’ve opened. There’s a tiny tunnel inside, won’t fit no one but the smallest sentient.

  “That’s the one. Controls the mag-locks.” Guard’s memory confirms it.

  These is high-security cells, the tightest I ever seen. Each one takes up a whole block, has a series of interlocking doors that show us nothing but metal. Whoever this fella is, the Empire wanted to shut them up for a long old time.

  “So, wow,” Kalia says, looking down the hall. “This person survived a year in the Dark Zone and then scared the Empire so much they got locked away here? What kind of person can do both of those things?”

  “Two damn good questions,” I say.

  “What does he say about it?” She nods toward the soulsword.

  For half a second I almost say, that slab’s in more trouble than us, then I figure these kids got enough on their minds. “He en’t, uh, well educated in such things.”

  Kalia and Toq peer up a maintenance shaft, one too small for anything but kids or Reveks. There’s a central bit of tech up there. Kalia squirms up again, climbs back down. “Twenty-four sixteen. Toq, I need you to get up there and put this on it. I can’t fit.”

  Toq takes the thing they called the Pet, frowns at it. “The Suits are creepy,” he says, in that weird sort of kid-neutral tone. “I don’t like this.”

  “Toq, this is the most important part of the mission.” She’s a bit burned off at her brother. “Get up there and do it, aiya!”

  We both stare at her. Kalia’s talking spaceways?

  She flushes. “I said get up there, Toq! It’s now or never.”

  “Why are you talking like Jaqi? You said that Jaqi doesn’t talk properly.”

  Kalia flushes red. “None of this is proper! Why are we arguing about this now? Get your little butt up there!”

  He crawls in and Kalia flushes red and won’t look at me.

  “You picking up bad habits, ai?”

  “I didn’t mean to treat you the way I did, on the moon of Trace, Jaqi,” she says, real slow-like. “I . . . I think maybe the bluebloods are getting what we deserve.”

  “What? No.” Despite the blue goo all over me, despite the moment, I put an arm around the poor kid. “Kalia. Don’t believe that. Don’t ever believe that.”

  “I can’t help it,” she whispers, tucking her head into the crook of my neck. “So many bad things happen. They have to happen for a reason. God must be punishing us, or the Starfire, or something . . .”

  “Naw,” I say, and clutch her close. “Girl, please don’t think that. We all inherit some share of shit.”

  “But you ran away!”

  That hurts a bit. “I shouldn’t have. It was a damn fool action. I didn’t know what to do, what with everyone expecting a miracle, and miracles not being easy to do.”

  She cries again, into my shirt, not noticing all the fleshy bits and blue goo she gets on her face. “If bluebloods don’t deserve this, why is it happening?”

  That I don’t have an answer for. “Hell, honey, the galaxy spins the wheel of crap for everyone. Been a long time since your people were in the shit, but it just happens to be your turn.”

  “I can’t believe that. Everything happens for a reason.”

  “Can you believe the reason en’t your fault?” Her tearstained, blood-and-goo-stained face looks up at me. “Can you believe that maybe the reason en’t got a thing to do with you, and you was caught in its wake?”

  She makes a funny face, and goo drips off her slanted eyebrow. “Are you telling me not to be so self-centered?”

  Toq hollers, “Okay, it’s open!”

  Kalia wipes away tears, and leaves grime spread across her cheeks and forehead.

  We head down the hall to 2416. This is it.

  The mag-locks are still slowly disabling, and then we trip the manual levers that open the door. Central lock spins, and the doors part.

  And there inside, is the scab we done gone to all this trouble for, sitting cross-legged, quiet and still.

  And this scab . . . huh.

  Skinny. Could be human. Could be a cross, if a design I en’t seen before. Like Araskar, it’s clear that this one could handle a fight. Shaved head, slitted eyes, thick ropes of muscle under the tanktop.

  Got a couple of tubes running out of a couple of flesh pockets just above the waist, under a standard prison-issue shirt. The flesh tubes run into the walls.

  I can’t put no female nor male to this one. That’s a bit unusual for a cross. Can’t tell the original model, neither. I reckon the word is viiself, which is what humanoids who en’t male nor female go by. Them folk say vi, vir, vimself in place of the hes and shes.

  Vi is awake. I see green eyes between them slits. I wonder about them tubes coming out of vir chest, running into the walls. We got a sentient needs feeding tubes here? Kalia sticks the Pet on the walls’ control panels, looking to open whatever the tubes go to.

  “Salutes, scab. They feeding you out of a tube?” I ask vim. Those eyes, them bright slits, almost make vim look like something other than a cross. Something more like a cat.

  Kalia says, “Do you think it’s okay to approach vim?”

  Vi speaks, voice croaking a bit. “Two soulswords? So many enemies, aiya?”

  Hey, how bout that—this scab speaks spaceways, like me.

  Vi blinks, and speaks again in that croaky voice. “We need water, aiya.”

  En’t no one else in here, but hell, I reckon long enough in the dark and I’d have plenty of friends in my own head, so that explains this we.

  I detach the water store from my suit and hold it up to vir lips. Vi sucks it greedily.

  Vir long-fingered hands are shackled. Not just shackled with an energy shackle, but crossed with wire and bound tightly. I take out a shard-cutter, a simple tool in my suit, but the kind of thing spells freedom for this type.

  Vir eyes go a bit wide, I reckon, thinking about getting vir hands free. I don’t cut yet. “You the one lived a year inside the Dark Zone, aiya?”

  Them eyes get wider, no longer so slitted and suspicious. I done surprised vim. “Who sent you? The Resistance? John Starfire finally figured he’d pay mind to us?”

  “Not the Resistance. The Reckoning.”

  Vi says, “What in space is the Reckoning?”

  Aw, I felt so grand saying it, too. Well, give it time for the word to get around. “En’t got time to explain,” I say. “You lived a year in the Dark Zone; we’re after information about the devils. You got it, I get you out.” I thumb the controls for the shard-cutter, let it flash a little red.

  “Oh, we have it,” vi says.

  “What is it?”

  “We knows plenty, scab,” vi says, “that we will say as soon as we have our selves all back in our hands.”

  “Your selves?”

  Just then, Kalia finishes her trick with the Suits’ Pet and the sides of the cell slide open—to reveal that the tubes vi is talking about go to a couple of—

  “Guns?” Kalia stares back at vim. “You have an organic connection to guns?”

  Yep, two silver, fine-looking pistols, all levers and locks, the kinds of things I coulda fenced just a few months back and got my own asteroid for the catch. The organic tubes feed right into the bottom of the gun’s handles. Never seen a thing like that before.

  “Them’s our other selves, girl.” Vi smiles, showing small, white teeth. “Skithrr symbionts, last two in existence, run my pistols. We been cast out of lots of places for it, but we en’t never failed each other.”

  “You’re—” Kalia’s eyes flash between vim and me, as if I’m supposed to get something. “You’re—you’re—Jaqi, this is—”

  I wait, but she done run out of words. “Yeah, girl?”

  Splutter. Stare. Splutter.

  “Kalia, you’re going to have to spit some words before your head explodes.”

  And then, at long last, some words. “This is Scurv Silvershot!” />
  “What? No.” I star at vir hands, them I was about to cut free. “That fella en’t real.” Scurv Silvershot, in them holos Bill used to watch every damn night? I got them holos things memorized, but that Scurv didn’t look nothing like this one. Lot handsomer, for one thing. All scruffy and rugged. This one has the look of a cat; all ready to spring and kill, and sure, vi’s pretty, but in a way kind of scares me.

  “You en’t no legend,” I say.

  “Real,” vi says in that creaky voice, and now we all listen. “We’re the greatest shot in the galaxy. Nailed the Tyrant of Eridess right between the eyes from orbit. Flew between the twin suns of Sikaaria and only got singed. Saw the collection of Muracoon the Mad, and were nearly added to it. Fought Ariel Singh across the wild worlds. Recently returned from the Dark Zone.” Vi swallows dryly and adds, “Shitty place.”

  “Like the comic books!” Toq says.

  Vi scowls. “Don’t talk about them comic books. Them owes us money.”

  “Hang it, now, how you supposed to prove you’re the greatest shot in the galaxy?” I ask.

  “Guess you oughta put them guns in our hands, girl.”

  Kalia is giving me this look. And it’s a funny look, let me tell you, like she thinks I know what to do with Scurv Silvershot vimself, like I’m going to say something makes sense of this whole situation and what to do with a real-life comic book fella in the guts of a Ruuzan Threg prison.

  “What’d they get you for, scab?”

  “Copyright infringement,” Scurv says, and vir lip curls up in anger.

  “Say what? Copyright?”

  “They think they can tell us how to live with them damn comic books.”

  “That en’t the whole story. Can’t be.”

  “What do you know about the Dark Zone?” Kalia asks. “We were told you survived a year in there. We were only there a few minutes when the . . . when they tried to devour us.”

  Vi sighs, and stretches, twists vir neck. Again, like a cat. “Oh, we’ve seen the devils. Flew right past their hungry mouths. And we know there’s a planet and star, sitting right in the center of the Dark Zone, that them devils don’t touch.”

  There’s a planet right in the center of the Dark Zone? Say what? “Them devils eat planets and suns.”

  “The Shir leave this solar system alone.”

  I’m so rattled by this I forget to tell vim not to name the devil. “Folk live there? On this planet?”

  “They do,” Scurv says, and gives a little smile and shake of the shoulders, but vir eyes don’t change. “Planet called TS-101. It had another name, once. No one but us knows that, and that, we tells you once we’re out of here.”

  “TS-101 en’t no designation I ever heard.”

  “Aiya, girl. It’s an old First Imperial designation. Changed a thousand years ago. The universe lives and dies by file clerks, ai?”

  “You could find it again?”

  Vi shrugs. “We must say, in truth, that finding it were pure luck. But you could find it, could you track down an old enough map. Pre-Imperial Dark Zone star-designates. Tough to find, but maybe in one of them memory-crypts on Irithessa.”

  Kalia and I exchange a look, one of them looks where both of us figure there might just be something to this destiny business. “We have one of them maps.”

  Vi holds vir hands out. “We can take you there, you show us this map. Just let us out. Let us hold each other again.” Vir eyes flash on them guns. “Please.”

  Kalia decides it’s time to speak up again. “We’re fighting against John Starfire. He’s lost his mind.”

  “That’s this Reckoning? You’re trying to stop John Starfire’s crazing. You and these kids?”

  “That’s what this is,” I say. “The Chosen One decided he’d kill every human in all the spaceways.”

  Vi looks over me, Kalia and Toq, and I know what vi’s thinking. “I reckon you’re just getting this Reckoning started.”

  “Aiya, well, we got some more folk with us.” I leave out the bit where other folk are having more trouble. “Could use a professional gun-toter, truth. How you feel about old John Starfire?”

  “Well, now, a scab in our position’d say anything to get out, aiya?” Vi gives a laugh, a laugh sounds genuine. I reckon strange things happen to a sense of humor in the lonelies here. “But we did meet John Starfire. Wasn’t what he called himself then.”

  “And?”

  “We reckon by then he’d killed plenty, and was going to kill plenty more, and he told himself what he had to so’s he could live with all them bodies he put down.”

  Okay, that right there I know to be true words.

  I start cutting vir bonds. Scurv Silvershot, welcome to the Reckoning.

  -15-

  Araskar

  THE NECROSENTRY SHOVES ME against the glass. On the holo, Z and X roar their triumph to the crowd. They were supposed to fight each other, in an elaborate re-creation of a jungle world. Instead, they’ve stopped, and are holding their weapons up, waving them at Boss Cross.

  Boss Cross wipes his brow. “You’re lucky we have some medication that helped me recover from your, heh, dosage.” He just touches the shock stick to me, and my whole body convulses in pain. “I’m tempted to force-feed you the pinks, but I need you talking.”

  I look over at the holo. Z and X bellow something unintelligible. I can guess what it is. Fight us, Faceless Butcher!

  “But you knew that, didn’t you? Araskar.”

  Shit. Even more than the pain, there’s the realization that he knew my name. And that maybe he left the soulswords out as bait. “What—” I groan through the words. “What do you know?”

  “Not as much as you do, it seems. I got an answer from John Starfire himself.”

  Like I feared.

  “Why does John Starfire want a nobody like you so badly? Whatever caused you to cut and run on Swiney, and bring the head of the Resistance after you?” The soulsword’s shard edge pressed against my back, a line of pain down the spine. “I’d like to know that story. Although I feel all you’ll get from me is a cutting remark.”

  “Memory’s blade cuts deepest of all, yes?” Rashiya’s ghost says.

  I actually laugh, even twisted half to death as I am.

  “You laughed at my joke,” the Boss says.

  The NecroSentry turns me around and the Boss squints at me through those nondescript eyelids.

  “You laughed. No one ever laughs at my jokes.”

  “It was a great joke,” I say, and am glad my face is so bruised, because even I can’t keep a straight face with a lie like that.

  The NecroSentry whacks me again, quadrupling my headache, and grunts, “Death.”

  He nods to the NecroSentry. “Have the Zarra zoom on up. We’ll explain to them that they work for me now. They can say good-bye to their old manager, whatever he wants, because he’s going back to the Resistance.”

  “They will try to kill you,” the NecroSentry growls.

  He shrugs. “Think of all the blood and honor when you break their legs and implant obedience chips in them.”

  And then he shoves that micro-shard stinger into my back. Just for a moment—but it’s enough to blast my entire nervous system, release whatever’s in my bladder and leave me nose-down in drool.

  When I come to, I see my clients.

  Z and X bring a mighty stink into the Boss’s office. They’re covered in blood and mud, bits of other sentients.

  They can’t help but notice that I’m lying in the middle of the floor, my muscles still twitching, unable to move. My hands won’t do what they tell me to. Z, X, and the NecroSentry swim in my vision. The only steady figure in my field of vision is Rashiya’s ghost.

  “Welcome. Have a drink of water,” the Boss says.

  They both stare at him.

  “Or don’t.” The Boss gets up, walks around me. “It seems the Resistance wants your manager very badly. I’ve had to detain him. So here is the deal. You both work for me. Fights are once
a week. All expenses paid and provided for, but you don’t leave Shadow Sun Seven. You make it a year, you are free to retire, or sign again for a significant offer.”

  “We came to fight you honorably,” Z says.

  “Not this again,” the Boss says.

  “We are not afraid to die, Faceless Butcher!” Z roars, and steps closer—until the NecroSentry seizes his shoulder. I’m impressed with the monster’s grip, on both myself and Z.

  “Come and fight us,” X says. “Your monster may hurt us, but we will die in honor.”

  “Eh,” the Boss says with all the emotion of someone who’s just been told something inconsequential. “I suppose we have to talk about that. Very well. Protest and I activate my contacts on your homeworld.”

  “Your contacts?” X says.

  “We have come to make you pay for your crimes, to bring you death in the deepest dishonor, to—” Z is halfway through his prepared speech when the Boss’s words sink in. “What are you speaking of?”

  “I still have agents placed on the Zarra’s homeworld, and this includes a few xenobiologists who have access to very privileged information. Notably, they have access to a rarified form of the digger virus. You remember the digger virus, I think.”

  “I was just a child when it struck,” X says.

  “But you remember. Your people always do. That is all they can do—remember. Heh.” That dry, humorless laugh. “How would you like to see another bout of it? See your proud people, your elders, your children, turned mad and digging in the ground until their fingers turn to stubs. Until they forget to eat, forget to drink water.” He says it all in that flat, bored tone. “I killed a lot of Zarra, but I can always kill more.”

  “Curse you, and all your ancestors, and curse—” Z defaults to his practiced speech, until the NecroSentry lets go of my arm and uses that hand to cover his mouth.

  I immediately try to stand—and crumple, my nerves still not obeying due to the shock stick.

  “So you will belong to me, yes? Or do you need a little more time to grandstand?”

  X gives me a hand, and I manage to get to my feet, though I suspect my legs won’t hold me up.