by Gwynn White
“That's why we can't complain too much,” El-erae said, “or at all, really. It was your careless dumping that made us, especially your nuclear leftovers. The exposure made us mutate and evolve more rapidly than nature would have allowed, turning us from mere rats in the sewers to this, a race capable of getting up from all fours, of standing up, of reaching out to the very stars—maybe even to the planet that destroyed ours.”
Skip scoffed. “So this is what, revenge?”
“I'm not sure what this is, human. We've come to terms with our conditions, with our quality of life, even with the short lifespan we live, which our scientists think is due to the radiation. But that is life for us. We have known no better. Indeed, we have known worse.”
“So, what changed?”
El-erae's voice became hushed. She seemed hesitant to speak at all. “They came.”
“Who?”
“You've never met them, have you?”
Something twigged in Skip's mind, something uncomfortable. It was buried, deep down, so he pushed the feeling back where it belonged.
El-erae shifted in place. “They go by many names. To us, they are the Yuuamaka, the Masters. They came and lifted our people up, out of the sewers. For generations, we thought they were gods. Some still do. They gave us ships so that we could travel up to heaven. They gave us this space barge, the Ark.”
“This weapon,” Skip said.
“So you know its purpose.”
“I recognise a weapon when I see one.”
“And its target?”
“Still working on that.”
“I wouldn't take too long, human. You might find your home world gone by the time you figure it out.”
“Alpha Prime?”
“If that's what you call it, then yes.”
“But why? We're not at war with you.”
“Not with us, but you never ended your war with them.”
Skip shook his head. “With who?”
“I think you call them the Umbra. You don't yet call them Masters … but you will.”
17
An Uneasy Interview
On Gemini Left, Galaxy Express journalist Ted Nebula (presumed to not be his real name) was locked in Admiral Mendan's room with the renowned military man. He had just sat down for an interview before all this excitement kicked off, before the crew locked him inside for, they claimed, his own safety.
“What's happening now?” Ted asked when they initiated warp travel. He had never been on a ship that could travel as fast as this, and never one that was this far out beyond the known. It was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.
“You've travelled faster than light before, lad, haven't you?” Mendan croaked. His voice was as frail as he was. He was more shrivelled up than the Ad Farans of the Jolda system, who had been crudely nicknamed the “space raisins” by others in the galaxy. The admiral could barely see, barely walk, need the help of an aut to get out of bed or bathe, and had to get his nutrients by hypershot. At one hundred and fifty-eight years old, he shouldn't just have been retired—he should have been dead. It seemed like it was the will of the Emperor alone that was keeping him alive. By rights, he shouldn't have even been flying. Ted had secretly been preparing a piece about how the admiral was being hauled around as a trophy hero of bygone wars, a way to bolster the Emperor's failing ratings. He knew it would get him in trouble with the Empire. They hired him to write a very different piece.
“Yeah,” Ted said.
“Well, this is faster than faster than light. Didn't you do a piece on the Infinite engines?”
“That was my colleague.”
Mendan grumbled. “They should have sent him.”
Ted clutched his chair as the vessel periodically shook.
“Lad, you won't fall,” Mendan said, picking at the few strands of white hair he had left. “We call that space turbulence. Even with our Dust Deflection Array, we hit some rough patches. They're microscopic, but they cause some trouble. It'd take you years to hit them if we weren't travelling at these speeds. It's the speed that makes it dangerous.”
Ted gulped. “Dangerous,” he said, biting his lip.
Mendan eyed him with not a hint of sympathy. “Take a shot if you've got space sickness.”
“I'm fine.”
“Well, get me one, will ya? I've always hated flying.”
“An admiral that hates flying,” Ted said as he collected a hypershot from a dispenser close to the door. He handed it to Mendan. “Imagine the headline.”
“You won't be writing that,” the admiral said, taking the jab in his arm. He clenched what few teeth he had left. His dappled skin went a little pale—or rather, a little paler.
“Why's that?” Ted asked, making notes in his mind.
“Well, this is all off the record. A military manoeuvre.”
“I wasn't given any—”
“It doesn't matter what you were given or weren't given, lad. You can put that datapad away, and you can turn your ocular implant off too. You won't be using any of that footage if you know what's good for you. You're not under civil law any more. Those were torpedoes fired, and turrets singing. You're under martial law now. We've got different rules.”
“Journalists are neutral parties,” Ted said. He was about to rattle off the Galactic Charter of the Fair and Free Press, but Mendan silenced him with his eyes. It made him wonder what the admiral could do with a gun.
“I've lived through many wars, lad. There's no such thing as neutral parties. You're on our ship, which means if we're boarded, you're just as much at risk of dying as the rest of us. So, if it comes to it, you'll take up a blaster and march out as if you were wearin' the uniform.”
Ted didn't disagree or complain about that idea, at least not openly. He'd been on the front lines of some battles, mostly of uprisings on the dissatisfied planets in the Middle Ring. They were quashed easily, and with far more force than necessary. He'd been “advised” to document that level of violence as deserved by the rebels, as a warning to others. In it too was a warning to him.
“What do you think we're fighting?” Ted asked. He had his own answers to that. The Pan-Galactic Empire was over a thousand years old. It had grown big and unwieldy, spanning almost the entirety of the galaxy—so much so that they'd renamed the galaxy after it. Imperius. The old name was redacted from all the history books. The truth was out there somewhere, perhaps out beyond the Edge. That was what encouraged Ted to accept this job, despite the risk posed by the unknown. It was just a different kind of risk to that of living under Empire rules. Out here, outside the glance and grasp of the Empire, he could dig deeper. He was excited—and a little terrified—about what he might find.
“I know what we're fighting,” the admiral said. He moved about uneasily on his seat. “I kept tellin' people they'd be back.”
“Who? Who'd be back?”
Mendan leant in close and whispered, “The Umbra.”
18
Savages
Skip would have liked to have learned more from El-erae, but their conversation was cut short by the arrival of As-hamaz, along with several other Raetuumaka similarly robed. These looked like the elders of their species, ones who had evolved intellectually beyond their fellows. They had developed immense powers of the mind, which they could exert on others, and so were called Mern-mazteles, the Mind-killers, in the Raetuum tongue. Even their mere presence was giving Skip a headache.
“Telling more lies, I expect,” As-hamaz said to El-erae. She shimmied further into the shadows in the corner. Skip wasn't sure if she did it voluntarily.
“Hey,” Skip said, drawing As-hamaz's attention. “I hope you brought dinner. I'm starving here. I mean, this isn't how you treat a guest.”
“A guest?” As-hamaz said. His robes billowed as he laughed. “A man doomed to die.”
“Well, what about a last meal, huh? What are ya, savages?”
As-hamaz didn't like that. Perhaps they had been dismissed as barbarians many times
before. Perhaps he was attempting to rise above that, to elevate his species. If he was, he wasn't doing a very good job of it.
“Take him to the Way of Waters,” he ordered.
His companions opened the cage door slowly. Skip lunged at them, but they did not defend themselves with their fists. They simply looked at him, and he felt a sudden pressure throughout his body, especially his head. He could barely move. It was like he was wading through a mire. A deafening ringing played in his ears, like some kind of sonic weapon. He was brought to his knees, exhausted, barely able to prod them with a finger, let alone a punch.
“All brash and brawn,” As-hamaz said, though now he smiled. “Can't we settle our differences in a more … elevated way?”
Skip struggled up, shouldering one of the Raetuumaka away and reaching out for As-hamaz's throat. The sound began anew, crippling him, making his muscles like jelly, overwhelming his mind. He tried one last, desperate attempt to grab at his enemy, then collapsed to the floor.
“Why, Captain,” As-hamaz said, “don't be such a savage.”
19
The First Death
They dragged him through many corridors and rooms, so many that it all passed in a blur to him. He wasn't sure if he was mumbling along the way or if their voices were mixed inside his mind. They seemed stronger than before, able to lift him with ease, though he half felt like he was kind of lifting himself. They brought him before an open hatch in the floor of a hexagonal room, dangling his head over the opening. It was dark below, so he couldn't tell how far the drop was.
“Your species,” As-hamaz said, “is a disgrace.”
Skip tried to shrug. “I know,” he murmured. “What about it?”
As-hamaz snarled, then glanced at the others and blushed. He adjusted his robes awkwardly.
“You destroy worlds,” he said solemnly. It kind of sounded like the start of a judgement. There was no trial. “This system was your testing grounds and your landfill. Sonata V, one great dumping ground for the so-called Pan-Galactic Empire. Sonata III, a husk from your nuclear weapon tests. Sonata II, with its quarantine shell, sealing off the results of your biological weapon experiments. You looked at our system, out here on the Edge, and thought nothing of the life here, so less 'evolved' than yours.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Of course not, Captain. Why think of us out here? The glory and wealth is to be found in the Alpha system at the Core of the galaxy. That is where the lie started as a seed. That is where the lie grows and festers, like a disease. If there was one world, or one system, that deserved to be wiped clean, it is that one. It is yours.”
“Maybe so,” Skip said, “but then aren't you just as bad as us?”
As-hamaz's temper flared again. He pushed Skip, who stumbled into the chasm. The fall was about ten feet, and he landed in a shallow pool of water with a splash.
“We will never be like you,” As-hamaz roared down.
Skip struggled to his feet, almost slipping in place.
“Yeah,” he shouted back. “We'll always be better.”
“Mock us all you will, Captain. Now you face the First Death.”
The hatch sealed tight, blocking out most of the light. Only a faint blade came through here and there throughout the passage, barely illuminating the curved metal walls. It didn't take much of an imagination—and Skip didn't have much of one—to think that it looked a bit like a sewers.
20
The Way of Waters
Skip wasn't sure which way to go. The tunnel seemed to go on endlessly in either direction. He didn't ponder it too long though. With nothing to go on, he decided to walk wherever he was facing. If the Raetuumaka weren't being kind to him, maybe the fates would be kinder.
He took a few steps, almost slipping again. He had to reach out to the walls on either side for support, taking each step more carefully. The water was a few inches deep at the bottom. It seemed to move constantly, almost like it had its own tide. Skip wondered what gravitational effect the ship had on it, and had on him. Even more, he wondered what effect those Mind-killers had, and how he could possibly fight them. He was built for wars of might and muscle, the Man of No Tears. He quickly buried the feeling that they might be the first to make him cry.
He followed the passage for a while, then halted as he thought he heard something. He turned around, glancing in both directions, straining his eyes against the darkness. It seemed he was alone. Normally, that was a good thing. It wasn't the first time he found himself wandering alone behind enemy lines. Yet now a part of him felt like maybe he could have done with an ally. He didn't let that thought play out for long. He killed that part of him and gave it a quick burial. He couldn't wait for a friend. He had to do this on his own.
He pressed on, until it seemed like maybe the First Death would be exhaustion or starvation. He could see the thin crack of a hatch door above him every hundred metres or so, but there seemed to be no other means of escape. He tried jumping up to one, but it was too high. He tried running up the curved wall, but his feet skidded off the surface and he came down with a bang.
So he sauntered on, a little more defeated with each attempt to escape. Maybe that was the intent, to whittle him down, to break him. The thought of it only made him more defiant.
He remembered his childhood on Alpha Prime, when the other kids said he couldn't cross the Energy Bars before the metal gave him a zap. They said he had rockarms, that his muscles were too weak from the lower gravity of his asteroid home. They taunted him, and he rose to the challenge. The bars defeated him time and time again. His fingers slipped, or the zap came before he could get across in time. He fell, grazing his knees, and they taunted him more. No matter how strained he felt outside, and how broken inside, he kept getting up, and swore to himself that he would not cry. Day after day he went back there. Some said he was seeking his punishment. He felt he was seeking his reward. He was searching for his ascent above the people who tried to drag him down—just like, perhaps, the Raetuumaka were.
Each day he grew a little stronger and got farther across before he fell. Then some of the Alphans, perhaps feeling threatened by his progress, started to throw rocks at him. “A rock for the Rockborn,” they jeered. No matter how many bashes and bruises, he kept going. He wouldn't let go. As much as he clutched the Bars, he clutched this dream of his to make it to the other side. There, he would find his hidden glory, his way to climb above his station. There, he would find what it meant to be a man, and the strength to be a soldier.
When he finally made it across, the other children said he cheated, but he knew in his heart that he had won that victory through perseverance. From that day forth, whenever he felt that victory was far off, that the odds were too great, he reminded himself that all he had to do was put one hand before the other, that all he had to do was persevere.
21
The Ragged Belt
Maggie had barely gotten up out of her seat when she saw the lights change again. They were slowed down to sub-light speed—already. As much as Cada had overclocked the engines, there was no way they had reached their destination this soon. That only meant bad news.
“What's up, Larsman?” she asked over the comms.
“Buckle up, Maggie. Asteroids ahead.”
The Dust Deflection Array could obliterate the tiniest specks of dust in space, which at faster than light speeds would have otherwise torn the ship apart, but against larger obstacles like asteroids they didn't stand a chance. The impact would have been like setting off all the nuclear waste aboard the space barge they had just fled from. So they slowed to sub-light speeds, turning to manual manoeuvring, and began to separate the different parts of the ship to better traverse the asteroid field.
Maggie sat back down, taking the controls of the Bridge. Larsman boarded the Offspring, taking manual control there, while Toz separated the rockets from the fighters. The ship broke apart just in time for the first group of asteroids, which seemed to be tra
velling at great speeds. A few of the smaller ones struck the rockets, which took longer to turn, while Maggie and Larsman bobbed and weaved through the others.
The rockets fired off in either direction, attempting to go around the asteroid field, but the distance was vast. Yet, the chances of dodging the space rocks was small. They could have outrun them with the power of the Infinite engines, but the prospect of a high-speed impact was too much to risk.
Maggie watched as Larsman wound his way through the asteroids with ease, taking chances she wouldn't have dared to take. He dove straight towards two rocks that were about to smash into each other, narrowly clearing the gap before they crashed together. They bounced away, opening the path for Maggie to follow.
Gemini Left fired at some of the incoming rocks, breaking them apart or pushing them away. Gemini Right used its many shields to block some of the impacts. Meanwhile, Larsman dived and spun, and Maggie tried desperately to follow his ever-shifting movements.
Then Maggie thought she saw the colours on one of the asteroids change. She tried not to glance back, for fear she would miss a new obstacle on her path. Yet, even with both eyes ahead, she could see the shadow of something pass behind her. The computer picked it up too: a giant, worming creature, which had coiled itself into a ball, its cracked skin camouflaged to look like rock. It travelled with the asteroid field, hidden, waiting for some hapless prey to enter. Then it moved in for the kill.
“We've got company,” Larsman said over the comms. He pulled up hard, skirting over the body of another of the space worms that awoke before him. Maggie turned right, just as the head of the first worm came by, jaws open. She zoomed through its open jaw, clipping the tip of one of its jagged teeth before it chomped down with a force that sent out a shockwave.
