Borderlander

by Joshua Guess

  Dex would have been more interested in his first in-person glimpse of alien life had another detail not taken his attention as well as his breath: a spear protruded from its back. This didn’t seem to bother the beast in the slightest thanks to the heavy ridge of scales running along its spine, but it was the first sign of human—or at least intelligent—life since leaving the transit station.

  The beast sniffed around, swinging its head from side to side. It caught sight of him and Dex reacted at the same time the giant lizard did, if in different ways. He snatched a clump of stone from the shelf next to him, raising himself to his full height and preparing for what would probably turn out to be a last stand, arm cocked back to chuck his worthless missile as hard as his enhanced muscles allowed.

  The lizard did a little jump with at least half of its legs, spun in place with a sweep of its tail that sent a wave of gritty soil flying through air, and booked it. Dex’s mouth dropped open at the sudden grace and speed as the monster ran away from him. A flash of teeth as it reoriented itself gave a good clue why: the thing was an herbivore.

  “Huh,” Dex said to himself.

  He was tired, but his second wind came with a sharp rush of energy. He decided to make the best of it before the inevitable crash that came from triggering his engineered glands. His energy was not wholly physical; his curiosity was piqued. An animal that large, especially one that survived on plants, would need a huge source of calories. That implied more to this world than just the desolate landscape around him.

  The tracks were easy enough to follow. However fast the behemoth might be, subtle was not in its toolbox. He walked for another hour, pushing his body as far is it would go before the hand of brutal exhaustion finally drove him to collapse in the protective shelf of another dune.

  Sleep came easily enough. The temperature remained surprisingly constant, a fact Dex noted when he woke the next morning. He stretched and took care of all the minor necessities before doggedly resuming his trek.

  The trail led away from his previous heading by about a hundred and ten degrees. From what Dex could see, it was straight inland. For the first few hours nothing changed—the same unnervingly consistent rolling features in the land. When a shift did occur, it was subtle enough that Dex missed it until he didn’t. One of those ‘oh shit’ moments when the slow crawl of information in front of you gets a random check against expectations happened.

  The dunes were smaller by about half. They’d been shrinking the further inland he got, but what made him stop, and thus take note of the change, was the appearance of bright green-blue scrub. A single low bush about a third of a meter tall poked out from the top of a truncated dune. Dex wandered over to it, examining the vegetation more closely. He wasn’t able to garner much insight. He was a physics and engineering guy, not a plant guy.

  Half a kilometer later, more plants began to appear. Now there were variations in type and color, though the hues tended more blue than green. A few bright flowers adorned what appeared to be a dark blue cousin of a barrel cactus, their petals running the warm color spectrum from sun yellow to blood red.

  Two kilometers after that, and the world changed. Literally—the land broke from its even flatness and sloped down for nearly a full kilometer. From Dex’s perspective, the entire land mass he’d been traveling on was a cliff, its edges stretching to either side. In the middle was that slope, a break in the cliff face hundreds of meters wide and leading into the valley—or plain—below. The drop was gentle thanks to the sheer length of the ramp leading down from him, but he didn’t head that way.

  There would certainly be resources there of some kind, but Dex wasn’t ready to commit himself just yet. Instead he went right, avoiding the ramp, and moved to the edge of the cliff face overlooking the verdant stretch of valley.

  It went on seemingly forever. The cliff face was part of a vast semicircular ridge overlooking the vibrant growth below. From the high vantage he spotted breaks in the dense blue jungle, with occasional glimpses of more large octopeds crossing them. There were no obvious sources of water.

  He watched for more than an hour. Science was all about observation, and even before Dex delved into the world of physics, he had learned lessons about gathering information so well they might have been etched into his bones.

  When you’re coming up with a plan to escape a planet that refuses to let anyone leave, it’s best to be thorough.

  Dex only stood and made his way to the ramp once he found what he was looking for. It was faint, barely a discolored smudge against the sky just before the horizon, but it was there. Smoke. And where there was smoke, fire burned. Fire probably meant civilization, or at least people of some kind.

  Or it could just be a brush fire ignited by lightning. No way to tell unless he checked it out.

  *

  Threnody was, as far as Dex knew, a better copy of Earth than any other colony world. Even before the split when his home planet cut itself off from the Alliance, it was a beacon of bleeding edge technologies from the obvious genetic engineering—practicing it on the entire populace was the reason for the break—to terraforming on a scale no one had managed before. Combined with revolutions in automation and engineering, his people managed to copy a large chunk of Earth’s biome. Dex grew up with grass beneath his feet and trees over his head that would have left a neolithic man feeling perfectly at home.

  Which was probably why the walk through the analog of a forest was so unnerving. It was close enough to what he knew to sit comfortably within his frame of reference, but off by more than a few degrees, which was unnerving. The smooth trunks of the trees, for lack of a better term, were bulbous at the base and curved like expensive pottery. The branches were arrayed in the rigid patterns normally reserved for smaller flora. The colors were the worst part. Nothing was quite right, his brain kept telling him. No plant hit all the correct switches in his brain. Dex felt like he was walking through a room with no right angles.

  Twice, he hid behind the bole of a tree to avoid the fauna. The first time it was another of the giant octopedal lizards, the second a small pack of feathery carnivores chasing down one of their own. They had four legs and four wings, weirdly long bodies, and wickedly sharp beaks. Dex tried not to even breathe as he witnessed them go full cannibal.

  For the most part, however, he was alone on his walk. The curiously-empty forest floor broken only by the smooth trunks made it feel like he was moving through a collection of oddly-shaped marble columns. Once in a while he saw mowed-down stubs of smaller plant life, and reckoned the giant lizards kept the place in its current trim state.

  He smelled the smoke before he saw it—long before. Dex’s senses were better than human standard by a wide margin, which made following the scent easy. Also somewhat frustrating since he could smell it from a long way off; it took most of an hour to reach the clearing.

  The intertwined hope and fear of finding other people died as the scene resolved. The smoke drifted from the ruins of a campfire, around which bodies were strewn like dolls from a careless child. Three men and two women, broken limbs at unnatural angles, were spread around the space. Dex fell back to the nearest tree and put a hand on it, ready to push off into a dodge at the slightest hint of danger.

  Details:

  The blood on their clothing was dry, flaking and brown. The clothes themselves were worn through in places, replaced with scaly leather in others. They’d been here long enough to use parts of creatures they’d hunted or found in daily life. Supplies were strewn about the camp on one side, as if something had grabbed a pack and slung it around, while several more packs sat off to another side completely untouched. Three weapons were visible, all stained dark orange at the end. They appeared to be made of bone.

  Nothing moved. Dex watched for a long time to make sure. The bodies were far away, however, and despite his excellent vision, some subtleties went unnoticed as he kept a wary eye for enemies lying in wait.

  Dex nearly screamed when one of the bodie
s let out a wracking gasp and sat bolt upright.

  She shook her head, hanks of black hair slapping against her face as she tried to make sense of the nightmare around her. Confusion was written in her body language along with pain and the tense, terse movements of frightened prey.

  She turned over slowly, getting knees on the ground and working her way to her feet. Doing so put her directly in Dex’s line of sight, though it took her a few seconds to notice him. She froze.

  He froze.

  The woman glanced over at a nearby weapon, which looked like a sharpened length of thigh bone with some of the scaly leather wrapped around its base to make a hilt. Dex decided to keep things as relaxed as possible and put up his hands in surrender. If nothing else, he was confident his lack of injuries and genetic Blessings would give him the edge in any fight.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said quickly. “I smelled the smoke. What happened here?”

  The woman stared at Dex as if he was an incomprehensibly difficult math problem, her expression dazed. It was only when he saw the distant look in her eyes that Dex realized she must have some kind of head trauma. Slowly, cautiously, he stepped away from the bole of the tree and moved toward her.

  “I’ve only been here a day,” Dex said. “I don’t understand what’s happening. I was taken while I was on shore leave.”

  The woman’s eyes locked on him, a bit of her confusion clearing up. “You’re Navy?” There was a note of excitement in her voice.

  He decided to answer in a technically honest way, since the Ghost Fleet was technically a state secret. “No. Independent ship. Part of a free company, actually.”

  “Fuck,” the woman said, shoulder slumping.

  “Why does it matter?” Dex asked. “What’s the difference?”

  She ran a grubby hand over her bloodstained face. “If you were Navy, they might come looking for you. But you’re just like the rest of us. All snatched from somewhere while we were alone. By the time anyone knew we were missing, it was too late for them to even know why.”

  Dex smiled, unable to help himself. “In that case, I have a little good news.”

  7

  Crash was on duty when the bad news came through.

  “We’re being ordered to stay away from Athena station,” Iona said. “I just got the burst over my Ansible.”

  “Who sent it?” Crash asked, though she had a good idea.

  Iona sighed. “Sharp. He’s ordering us to remain here. He’ll be showing up personally in a few minutes.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Crash said. “Captain’s not gonna be happy about this.”

  Iona shook her head. “Probably not, though I can’t imagine he’ll be surprised.”

  That much was true. Their ship had been closely associated with the Navy during the first weeks of heavy fighting with the Children. Athena was technically a naval port even though it had a large civilian element, and Commander Sharp wanted Seraphim away from anywhere that might imply she was in service to the fleet.

  They currently floated near an empty system, a star with an alphanumeric identifier rather than a name. Many like it were set up as transit points, pit stops where ships able to make their own Cascade gates could pause and update via autonomous communication nodes nestled on the outskirts of the system. Every ship that came through would carry updated military and civilian feeds, making the node a sort of information dead drop. If your ship was about to enter the Cascade bound for a world that might have suddenly be dealing with an outbreak of civil war, the node would probably carry the news.

  It was an imperfect system, but since the Navy wasn’t keen on letting the wider Alliance know they had the means to communicate in real time across galactic distances, it was what they had. Crash had been careful to send messages to Sharp’s command through standard channels as well as the faster-than-light Ansible inside Iona.

  “Why is he just stopping us now? I let him know we were coming four hours ago,” Crash griped.

  Iona shrugged. “No idea. The message is pretty short.”

  She forwarded it to the command terminal, but Crash couldn’t squeeze anything new from the text. It boiled down to wait there, don’t take your next jump. I’m close and will be there shortly.

  They waited. She knew she should probably wake Grant, but wanted to hold off until absolutely necessary. He’d been on the edge of exhaustion when he finally went to bed, and she wanted him in good condition if Sharp was about to drop bad news on them.

  The Ueshiba appeared in real space less than ten minutes later. The ship looked brand new since the repairs during which her entire outer hull had been replaced. Crash never got tired of watching ships leave the Cascade, their skin covered in a ribbon of energy as they appeared to emerge from a hole in nothing at all.

  The hail came at once. Crash was mildly surprised Sharp didn’t activate the override system all Ghost Fleet ships carried in their software. The call was a formality; Sharp could take over the ship and force the system to accept it.

  “Commander,” Sharp said from the monitor. He was alone, which Crash took as a bad sign. A transmission in private rather than from the bridge or a communications kiosk could not be a positive development.

  “Commander,” Crash echoed. “I’m a little surprised to see you out here. Are you stalking us or something?”

  Sharp pursed his lips. “This is a conversation we need to have face to face. I’ll be over in a pod in five minutes.” He cut the connection.

  Crash blinked at the empty screen, then turned to Iona. “What the hell? Do you have any idea what this is about?”

  Iona shook her head. “Not a clue. Must be important if he came personally.”

  “Fuck,” Crash said. “Guess we need to get Grant up here. Wake him, but just him. He can decide if the whole crew needs to be here for this.”

  *

  The transport pod was just big enough for a seated adult to fit in. The automated control system coordinated between the two ships and mated it with a secondary airlock easily. Had Crash not known Sharp used them often, she would have assumed his haggard and worried state was from the trip.

  “Are you okay?” she blurted out without thinking. “You kinda look like shit.”

  Sharp straightened his uniform and stepped into the corridor, leading the way to the bridge. “I’m fine. You and your crew are the ones in danger.”

  He left it on that cryptic note until they made it onto the bridge. Grant sat in the command seat, wearing a gray shirt and loose lounge pants. His eyes were bleary but alert enough. Iona was handing him a cup of coffee from the thermos Crash always kept on hand for her shifts.

  “Seal the bridge, please,” Sharp said to Iona. “Lock out all microphones and other recording devices.”

  Iona tilted her head in the way that meant she was accessing one computer system or another, then nodded. “We’re secure, sir.”

  “Wonderful,” Grant said, wincing as he sipped the coffee. “Anyone want to tell me why I’m awake after three hours of sleep?”

  “Your message is why,” Sharp said, leaning against the comm station. “You’re damned lucky Iona sent it to me directly, and encrypted, rather than just relaying it openly through another sim. And honestly, I double checked the communications you sent through the node network just to make sure you didn’t include specifics there. It probably saved your lives.”

  Crash crossed her arms. “What’s that supposed to mean? All I sent over the network was a coded request to use the comm hub at Athena. Of course I wouldn’t put the reason anywhere it could be intercepted. We’re supposed to send that stuff via sim to you or fleet command.”

  “What I’m saying is that if you’d sent it to command, this ship would probably be a cloud of hot metal dust right now,” Sharp said. “If they knew a Ghost Fleet asset had been captured, you’d all be burned in a heartbeat. Can’t risk a liability like that.”

  Grant, now fully awake, grew angry. Crash saw it coming and put a hand on his shoulde
r, speaking for him instead of letting his sleep-deprived brain do something he’d regret. “Do they really think we’d be that much of a risk?”

  Sharp sighed. “Not you specifically, though we’re aware of how good a crew you are and how powerful this ship is. It’s standard protocol. One of your own being taken captive by parties unknown means they have leverage to compromise you. All Dex would have to do is admit to the existence of the Ghost Fleet and name this ship. His captors could do a terrifying amount of damage with that little information.”

  Crash tapped a fingernail against her lip. “But you don’t think so?”

  “No, I very much do,” Sharp said. “But you’re a loyal bunch, and I think Dex will hold up under questioning for a good long while. I want to give him, and you, time. So I’m going to delete that message and pretend it was you requesting an assignment. I’m going to give you one—a real one you’ll have to complete—so you have a pretext to go looking for him without Command asking questions.”

  “That’s a hell of a risk you’re taking,” Grant said.

  Crash nodded. “No shit. If your bosses figure it out, you’ll be lucky if just your career ends. Why take that risk for us?”

  Sharp’s usual demeanor—tight, controlled, and as keenly edged as his name implied—relaxed. Shrank, maybe, as if in defeat. “I understand the reasoning behind the protocol. I agree with it. But I served with you on this ship. I know the kinds of risks you took. I’ll be damned if I pay back that kind of service by letting you get killed for convenience. And don’t go singing my praises too hard, because this thing has a time limit.”

  Crash let out a breath. “Yeah, kinda figured. If Dex does get questioned about us, then every day the chance grows that he spills what he knows about the fleet. How long do we have?”