by Gwynn White
“I can't power up the Infinite engines until our fighters dock,” Axel replied.
Maggie turned back to the screen, where the blinking blue dot that marked the Offspring seemed to vanish in a sea of red. The enemy was everywhere. If both fighters weren't locked together with the rockets, they would be left behind when hitting warp speeds. The rockets would also travel significantly slower when flown independently.
Maggie tried to open up the comms to Ontri, but it was blocked. Then she tried Lieutenant Larsman, who she knew was always eager to get up close and personal with the enemy.
“We're busy here!” Larsman replied. He was steering the ship with his left hand and manning a remote gun station with his right. You could tell, because he gritted his teeth and roared as he rattled off his shots. Some called him the Octopus, because he'd be manning eight stations at once. Skip might've been a one-man army, but Larsman was a one-man crew.
“I need you to take over the Offspring,” Maggie said. “Ontri's not answering, and … I think it needs a human touch.”
“I'm game,” he replied. “Here, Drom. Take the wheel.”
Even when Drom came over, Larsman kept firing away. Maggie wasn't all that surprised. With Skip's crew, it was hard to peel them away from a battle. She wondered if they'd keep on shooting even after they were dead. She had a feeling she might know the answer soon enough.
The Offspring headed straight for the Gemini, taking evasive action as it went. The AAA routed shields to the rear and made no effort to fire back. The command Ontri left was to get back to the ship as soon as possible. It was getting there, but not soon enough.
Larsman's grizzled face appeared on the screen. “You're relieved.”
The AAA immediately left its station and returned to its alcove, where it powered down. It made no assessment of the risk it faced there, of the raging battle outside. There were humans who wished they could turn off so easily.
Larsman took over the controls, taking a hard left, leading half the fighters around after him. He dove down, then pulled up sharply, performing a loop until he was behind enemy lines. He rattled off the guns, tearing through two of the fighters before he flew through the blaze. The debris clattered off the shields and bounced away into some of the other fighters. That was one of the few good things about fighting a swarm. With a bit of luck, taking out some would inadvertently take out others too.
The bad part was that there were many more to take their place.
Aboard Gemini Left, Larsman toyed with the controls. He remembered his first drone as a child, which he flew over government territory, taking photos along the way. That was when he saw the bigger drones, the bigger ships. That was when he wanted to fly those. Steering the Offspring was easy, like a dance, not like the unresponsive rocket. There was no space ballet with that.
He zig-zagged through the crowd of fighters, spinning here, rolling there. He fit through spaces others wouldn't have dared fly through, and dodged the undodgeable. It was all second nature to him. He could do it in his sleep—and often did. That was why he got bored so easily, why he so often ended up pulling over a second or third console to do something else.
He did that now, reaching for a gun station, keeping one eye pinned to the screen. His finger touched the edge of the flak cannon's trigger, but the explosion he saw was on the Offspring. His jaw almost dropped as the fighter halted suddenly.
“What happened?” Maggie asked over the comms.
“Damn!” he said. “The controller's been hit. I've lost control.”
The Offspring was a sitting duck.
13
Unbreakable
The Raetuumaka dragged Skip away and cast him into a holding cell, binding his hands in an energy ball. He could stretch his fingers inside, but he couldn't touch or grasp anything outside the globe. Some “energy magicians”, like the galaxy famous Parahoudini, claimed to be able to get out of those cuffs, but it was all games and tricks. This was altogether real.
“Human, I guess,” a voice said from the shadows in the corner. Skip didn't like when shadows seemed to move or talk. It made those childhood tales of the Umbra feel a little real as well.
“Who's there?” Skip asked. He would have rather asked it with a gun.
The figure leant forward, letting the light reveal its snout and whiskers. It was a rat-man, just like the rest of them, though its hands were sealed in an energy ball too.
“I am El-erae,” she said. Skip wasn't sure why he assumed it was a she, but she spoke a little softer than many of the others, and had softer features too. Her fur was a light brown, with a patch of white across one eye. “The Outcast,” she added.
“What'd you do?”
El-erae gave a meek smile. “No introduction then?”
“I don't do introductions.”
“Just partings?”
“If I have a weapon, then yeah.”
“Maybe you will get on with my kin.”
Skip held up his bound hands. “Yeah, I don't think so.”
El-erae leant closer. “What did you do?”
“Came lookin' where I wasn't wanted, I guess.”
El-erae nodded solemnly, as if she understood well what that was like.
“And might have killed a hundred or two,” Skip added.
El-erae didn't nod to that.
“What about you?” Skip asked. “Eat someone else's cheese?”
“I existed.”
Skip tutted. “Been there. Stars, been there my whole life. But see, I'm one o' the lucky ones, because when I break the rules, I often get rewarded for it.”
“Except now,” El-erae observed.
Skip grumbled. “Now's not over yet. That's the good thing about now.”
“You might wish it was. You have the energy brand of one facing the Dozen Deaths.” She gestured above Skip, and he noticed for the first time a faint glowing sigil above his head. He didn't recognise the symbol. It must have been part of the Raetuum tongue.
“I've faced more than a dozen in my time,” Skip replied.
“And lived?”
“Well, what do you think?”
“I make no assumptions any more. I have lived to see ghosts stalk ships and shadows consume worlds. Once I prayed to the Blinking Gods in the sky, but when I came up here, I found that they were far more distant, that when it came to our troubles, they were blind.”
“So, you're one of those,” Skip said.
“One of what?”
“A … believer.”
“I believe in evil.”
“Do you now?”
El-erae nodded emphatically. “I believe it has taken over my people, that it is using them to orchestrate the devastation of worlds.”
“Just like Sonata V,” Skip said, recalling the scorched surface.
“No,” El-erae said, and her eyes grew grim. “Your people destroyed that.”
14
Something Tactile
Maggie raced to the nearest transporter, taking it straight to the docking bay that led to the Bridge. She entered through the door in the right wing, which was sealed tightly to an entrance on the rear of Gemini Right. The seal was so seamless that it was hard to tell where the two vessels, or parts of the larger vessel, began or ended.
She relieved the AAA, who was perched motionless in the driver's seat, and took the ship off automatic. She fiddled with the touchscreen for a moment, gritting her teeth as she struggled to get to grips with it. She reached beneath the desk and pulled a lever. The touchscreen flipped, revealing a set of joysticks in good old-fashioned leather. That was how she'd learned to fly on her father's farm. She still had it etched into her memory, in both her mind and her hands.
She released the clamps holding the fighter-bomber in place, and watched as the rockets on either side seemed to drift away. She powered up the thrusters, which packed a punch, pushing her vessel harder and faster than they did on the heavier rockets. She would have loved to have had some time to adjust to the controls,
to give it a test flight, a few turns and twirls. But there was no time for tests, and there was nothing like the real thing.
She turned sharply, heading for where the majority of the swarm were converging: where the Offspring was slowly rotating around on the spot. That was the problem with AAAs. Until they were given a command, they would just sit there, waiting. The four auts aboard the Offspring were still dozing in their alcoves, oblivious to the battle outside. There should have been five aboard, Maggie thought. She wondered why Ontri had stopped responding, and seemed to be making zero effort to fly away. She couldn't pick up his signal on the fighter, but she presumed it was because of Skip's signal block. He didn't want her getting through, which was fine, but Maggie feared it might cost him his rescue.
She gave the engines everything—everything bar her life. As the tiny specks of the swarm turned into larger fighters on the viewscreen, she had a feeling she might have to give that too.
She scanned the approaching ships. There were no life signs, but then her scans of the space barge produced the same results. Maybe those fighters were empty, controlled from afar, or steered by auts, but Maggie couldn't take the chance. She was going to do this her way, which meant taking no lives. Skip was “all guns blazing,” but Maggie was “think first, shoot never.” She believed first and foremost in the redemption of all, that everything had a place and a purpose, if they could all just find a way to get along. She only hoped that the enemy would see it, and realise she wasn't an enemy at all.
They didn't.
The first wave of ships bypassed the spinning Offspring altogether, much to Maggie's surprise, and came straight for her. She wasn't sure why, and she had no time to find out. She pulled up quick and performed a barrel roll, one of her favourite moves as a child. It was something else entirely inside a fighter-bomber. Even with the g-force stabilisers on, she could feel the weight of the ship as it swung around. That was something you missed with remote flying. It didn't have the same feel, and thus you didn't react the same way at all.
Larsman's image came on her screen. “Stars, Maggie, why didn't you let me steer?”
“You got your chance.”
“Not in person.”
“You'd have killed.”
“Your point?”
“I can do it without killing.”
“Good luck with that, Maggie.” He paused. “Stars, good luck to us all.”
15
Battle Without Battle
Maggie armed the torpedoes, which gave her a sick feeling in her stomach. Her fingers hovered over the trigger buttons. She knew that with just a little push, she could end the lives of many. It was a power she didn't like to wield, a power that didn't suit her. For whatever reason, it wasn't so easy to save lives.
She fired.
The torpedoes launched from beneath the hull, close to the wings. Their speed made them difficult to shoot down, and the explosion would still cause tremendous damage. She watched as they snaked through the inkwell of space, straight towards where the swarm was heading. She clenched her eyes, waiting for the moment of the strike. She could see the explosion behind her eyelids, and feel the shockwave rock her vessel. When she reopened her eyes, she saw where it had made its mark, several metres in front of the oncoming fighters. The shockwave knocked them back, disabling some and sending others spinning. Not a single one was destroyed, and no lives were lost either.
Maggie was a woman of science, of experiment, and this was an experiment that had proven results. She could fight, and use weapons of war, in a different way than anyone else had tried. And maybe, just maybe, she could win.
She launched a second set of torpedoes, farther off, blocking the advancement of a second wave of fighters. Whether it was natural or artificial intelligence inside those vessels, they had learned from the first attack and now veered off sharply. Few were caught in the shockwave. That was the thing about science. Your enemy could learn it too.
So she changed the torpedo pattern, sending some out wide, making others loop. She was able to redirect a few manually, letting them make a flight path for the fighters to detect, before radically changing it. Others she shot down herself, causing the explosion early, throwing off the enemy. In time, they didn't know what she was doing, and couldn't get through the seemingly endless wall of explosions that blocked their advance.
They turned to regroup, possibly forming their own new plan of attack. That was Maggie's window of opportunity. She blasted forward towards the Offspring and hovered over it. She fired magnetic tow cables down. They were meant for cargo, not ships, but they gripped the hull of the Bridge all the same. The Offspring shook as the weight of the larger fighter-bomber yanked it back.
Maggie grunted. She grasped the joysticks tighter, as if she was grabbing a hold of the Bridge itself. She leant forward, determined. There was nothing like the prospect of death to give you zeal.
The Bridge moved a little. It was like pulling a tractor out of the mud. Maggie had done that many times before, and she hated it with all her heart. It was what had made her leave the life of a farm in the first place. Her father refused the aid of technology, despite her pointing out that his own vehicles were technology too. The pace of advancement frightened him. He said something was being lost. He might even have been right, but a lot was being gained too. Maggie just wished she had something more to get the Bridge moving.
“Maggie,” Larsman said over the comms.
“Yeah,” she replied, her voice as strained as the tethers.
“We need those ships.”
“I'm working on it.”
It didn't help to see Larsman's worried face, so she tapped the viewscreen off, leaving just his worried voice. She could drown that out with her racing thoughts and fleeting breath. It was as if she was pulling that ship herself. There were so-called strongpeople who did just that, hauling entire starships across a docking bay, though she always thought they must've cheated with hidden boosters or hoverpads. She didn't have the luxury of cheating, maybe not even cheating death. The hull of the Offspring bulged like her straining muscles.
The Bridge moved a little more, metre by metre in the immeasurable vacuum of space. Each tug pulled it a little farther, its own momentum starting to help the process. Faster it went, two metres now, then three. All the while, another swarm of fighters approached at lightning speed.
“Come on!” Maggie urged, saying it out loud, an order to herself, a command to her vessel, a plea to the gods of metal and muscle, who found in her a new believer.
She could see the fighters fast approaching, those ominous blinking lights burning little marks in her mind. Then, just as the fighters came into view, and she gave one final tug before readying to release the cables and prepare for battle, Gemini Left cruised by, crashing straight into the oncoming swarm. The explosions came like a chain reaction, some from the fighters, some from the hull of the rocket itself. The remaining fighters turned their guns upon it, while its own guns came out rattling.
Maggie continued her monumental struggle, painfully aware that she might be able to have a bloodless battle, but not everyone else wanted one. Peace required the participation of all parties. Some people, for whatever reason, preferred war.
She hauled the Offspring to its docking position, letting it dangle. Normally an AAA would do the docking, guiding the vessel in gently. Instead, she tried to keep it roughly in place, while crew aboard either rocket fired magnetic tethers from either side and yanked it into place. When she got the go-ahead that it was docked, she loosed her own tethers and began the docking procedure for her own vessel. It was harder than she expected, and it took some time to line up properly, but there was no guesswork when it was done: the lighting aboard the ship changed from red to blue.
“Great work, Maggie,” Larsman said.
She was about to respond, but he interrupted her.
“Now, buckle up. We're gonna go to warp.”
The parts of starship Gemini had barely slotted together b
efore Larsman powered up the Infinite engines. In the blink of an eye, the vessel slingshot across the galaxy, out of the reach of the swarm. The Infinite engines burned bright, connected together by the Bridge, creating energy out of nothing, and fuelling the massive thrusters at the rear of each rocket.
Inside, the warp stabilisers barely managed to keep everyone in place. Without them, the entire crew would have been thrown with such violent force that they would have been killed instantly. So much rested on the stabilisers that they were cordoned off from most of the crew, and given a permanent watch in Engineering on Gemini Right.
“We did it,” Larsman said, his ugly mug showing up on Maggie's screen once more. She still clutched the joysticks, almost afraid to let them go. The ship shook violently as it thundered down the slipstream, travelling many times faster than light.
Maggie smiled. “We did it.”
Then she thought of Skip, and her smile faded. Then she thought about where their journey would lead them, further out towards the Edge.
16
Uncomfortable Truths
In the dank, dark prison aboard the space barge, Skip had his own troubled thoughts. He didn't like where he was or that he'd been captured, but more than anything he didn't like what El-erae had told him.
“That can't be true,” he said. “Humans have never been out this far.”
“They have, though they never returned. But that doesn't matter. You sent your waste out here, drifting endlessly. In time, Sonata V's gravity pulled some of it in. Then you didn't just let it drift. You calculated flight plans to send it straight into our grasp. It wouldn't be so bad, except it was endless. Infinite waste. Our planet was swallowed up by it, one big dumping ground.”
“Then how did your people survive?”
