by Gwynn White
“Colony-eaters,” Toz said. Maggie had heard of these before, though there were only three recorded attacks by the illusive creatures. They travelled usually in packs, taking a whole asteroid colony in their mouth before crushing and consuming it. Many scientists believed changes in space weather were causing them to travel farther into the galaxy, seeking new territory. Now the Gemini was in theirs.
“These are smaller than the reports,” Larsman commented.
Maggie studied the awkward movements of the space worms, like the first wobbly steps of a child. “These are newborns,” she surmised. “It's a nesting ground.”
There was some relief in that assertion, for the fully grown forms could have swallowed the Gemini rockets in one gulp. Yet, it also made her think that somewhere out there was the mother or father, and if they came back to find their nest invaded, they'd be very angry.
Larsman had vanished out of sight, though his marker on the screen continued to move. Maggie only hoped it didn't move inside the belly of a beast. But there was no time to worry about others. It was just as dangerous for herself.
The nearest worm coiled itself around a nearby asteroid—or perhaps it was another worm disguised—using it as a kind of springboard to launch itself towards Maggie's ship at greater speeds. She pulled up sharply, coasting along the ridges of its nose, if it was a nose, and then its eyes, and across the back of its neck and down its body. She turned quickly to avoid the lash of its tail at the end.
And there was the second worm, waiting for her, as if to snap the tail of its kin in the search for a meal. It was anyone's guess what these creatures normally ate, and if they were left out here to starve. Yet, whatever kind of compassion or mercy Maggie felt—and it was a lot—it was overcome by her own hunger to survive.
The creature wiggled its way towards her, swimming in the sea of space. Maggie's natural curiosity made her want to study it, to see how it moved through that great vacuum—indeed, how it survived out there, how it breathed, if it even had lungs. Yet if she watched too long, she would learn a different lesson altogether: how it fed.
She gave the thrusters everything, darting forward. She could almost feel the space worm behind her, diving between the asteroids that she passed through, flicking one away with the whip of its tail. Her speed was constant, which must have meant the worm was getting faster, because the computer's sensors went mad, telling her of an incoming “missile.”
Then, just as suddenly, she found her ship engulfed in shadow, and looked out to see that she was in the jaws of the beast. She gasped audibly, so much so that her comrades heard her on the comms and feared the worst. In a moment of genius or madness—and likely a little bit of both—she killed the life support of her vessel, redirecting the power to the thrusters, which propelled her out of the worm's mouth a mere second before the jaws slammed shut.
She felt the sudden chill of the air, and then the increasing pressure, and then the suffocating lack of oxygen. She turned the life support back on, feeling the ship slow again. Maybe it was the reduced oxygen, but now she started to make more daring moves, ones that even Larsman would have hesitated to make. She drove straight for an asteroid, to the point that the computer warned of impact, and dove down sharply at the last moment, like one of the daredevil pilots in the Empire's Galactic Games. The worm came along behind her, swift and sudden, but its bulk made it harder to follow her final movement. The asteroid crashed into its body, sending it squirming away.
Maggie continued on, a little more confident now, having skimmed the surface of death and managed to pull away in time. Then several more asteroids ahead of her started to shudder. Many more space worms stirred from their slumber, awoken by the cry of their kin.
Maggie wasn't sure what to do. There were at least six of them blocking the path ahead. She thought maybe she hadn't cheated death at all—she had just delayed it. Maybe she wasn't destined to be the meal of one, but a feast split between an entire brood.
Then, behind the wall of rock and worm, she saw Gemini Left pass by, with its many turrets turning into place. They opened fire, blasting through the gathering worms. The creatures roared out, perhaps a cry to their mother, before slithering away.
Maggie was never so glad to see guns blazing, and yet she felt a secret guilt that her life had been spared that way. She remembered Skip mocking her belief in the sanctity of all life, telling her that some day she would pick up a gun just like the rest of them. That day had not yet come, but many others were shooting for her. She didn't feel she could entirely absolve herself if the outcome was the same.
The asteroid field ended, and the pieces of the Gemini starship rejoined each other. They continued on at sub-light speeds, keen to get as far away from that nesting ground as possible. The fear of the mother returning was on all of their minds. They just hoped she wasn't coming back the way they were going.
They hadn't travelled far when they faced a new barrier. Ahead were a series of floating warning buoys, black octahedrons that periodically blinked red. They were different to the ones the Empire used, but their purpose was instantly clear. This was the literal rim of the Edge. After that point, the galaxy ended.
“Pull us back!” Toz shouted.
“We're safer out here,” Larsman replied.
They drifted past the warning buoys, into the great expanse beyond the Edge. The Pan-Galactic Empire had no name for this region. It simply called it the Unknown. There were no records of humans having travelled out this far, and though Maggie was making some mental notes, she had a growing fear that she wouldn't live long enough to record them.
22
The Rising Tide
Skip kept walking, until his muscles began to weaken, and then he walked some more. Every step was harder than the last, and the water didn't make it any easier. Yet, no matter how far he'd have to go, he'd go there. He'd crawl if he had to.
As he went, he could hear footsteps far above, muted by the metal. A whole army walked above him, toiling away, readying their weapons, conspiring and colluding with whomever the illusive Masters were. He couldn't make out their words and could only imagine their deeds. It made him wonder what his own crew were saying and doing now. He couldn't hear them either.
Yet there were other sounds that were clearer in these sewers of the ship. The sound of creaking metal. The sound of gushing water. He added to them the splash of his boots in the shallows below him and the grunts and groans he made as he stumbled on.
Then he realised that the sounds he was focusing on were not a mere meditation for the march. They were things his gut was directing him to pay attention to. They were sounds that could save his life.
He reeled in his wits just enough to notice that the water below him was rising. It'd been just below the lip of his boot, and now he felt the water seep inside. That must've been an inch higher than before.
Another valve creaked. The water flooded in more. He couldn't tell its source, only that it was rising steadily around him. Now he was waist deep, wading more than walking. The prospect of death gave him a second wind, but he thought he might need a third or fourth if he were to escape.
He pushed on, and the water pushed back. Its uncanny tide cast him back as many steps as he made, or thought he made. Those steps seemed easy when the tide moved the other way.
He looked up and around, searching for some exit, some little crack he might widen, some door he might unlock. He rarely looked down, where the water kept on rising. He didn't have to. He felt it slowly swallowing him. That it was slow was the torture of it all. In battle, death was often quick.
He struggled to kick off his heavy boots, and was only glad that he wasn't wearing his armour now. Yet, part of him wished he was. It had its own oxygen tank, and he might have been able to punch a hole through the wall with those giant gauntlets. The thought was no help to him now. It was like staring down the barrel of a gun and wishing you'd fired first.
He started to float, and swam up as high as he could, unti
l his hands could almost touch the ceiling. He turned on the spot, looking for one of the hatches he couldn't reach before. It was so dark, he could barely see his own thrashing arms as he moved. Most streams offered the prospect of life, but this black river offered only death.
He swam on, feeling his way across the walls, and now the ceiling, catching his nails in the tiniest crack here and there, but finding he could do nothing to widen the gaps. His vision was blurring. The ebb and flow, and his own splashing, cast some of the dark water into his eyes, until he thought for a moment he'd gone under. It was no relief to find he hadn't, because the dread of it remained.
He thought he saw a faint light far off. He swam for it, ten metres, and yet the light seemed as far as ever. Maybe it was hope. He wondered if this was the point that most gave up, if they hadn't already. He saw their bobbing bodies in his mind, food for the rats. He swore that would never be him. He'd swim the even darker rivers of the Underworld if he had to. Part of him wondered if maybe he was already there.
He kept going. First it was foot after foot, step after step. Now it was arm after arm, just like it was as a child. He was made for this. The water taunted and jeered. He promised he would defy it, that he would overcome it, that he would ultimately triumph. Yet he wasn't a child. The tests of an adult had a higher price. Sometimes failure didn't just bring a lesson. It brought death. He had four decades under his belt, and wished he could cast them off to make him lighter.
He finally reached the source of light, finding a crack of about a centimetre between the doors of a hatch. He looked through it, and the light outside was blinding. He thought maybe that was a mercy, because then he couldn't see the rising waters. Yet his eyes adjusted, and he saw a boot pass by, and then a furry foot. He saw the shapes of Raetuumaka working away in the room above.
He thought about crying out for help, about begging for mercy. Maybe that was what they wanted. He wondered how many had gotten this far, past the bobbing bodies of their peers, and were left so broken that they auctioned their lives to the bidders above. They couldn't sell their souls, because by now they were shattered beyond repair.
He defied that urge inside him, just like he defied his captors. They could take all he had, but he wouldn't give it willingly. In that, they couldn't take his resolve. That was the one small victory he could take to the grave.
The grave was damp and rising.
He saw an eye suddenly appear at the crack. Someone had spotted him. There was a laugh above, followed by a series of shouts in the Raetuum tongue. He thought he heard As-hamaz's name called out. Then he saw the Mind-killer enter the room above and stand over the hatch doors, staring down. He smiled, and Skip had never seen so much glee upon the face of an enemy. Normally by now he had blasted it off.
“Seal it up,” As-hamaz told the workers. He turned away, and with a clank the hatch doors sealed tight, plunging Skip into almost total darkness.
No, the light was not hope. It was just a veiled despair.
There was little left for Skip to do. The water caressed his throat, like a strangler's foreplay. It nudged his chin, forcing him to pull his head back, to take some final gasps. It swallowed his face, filling up his ears and nostrils, making a tributary down his throat. It had all of him now, all but the tips of his fingers, which still grazed the ceiling above. Then it had those too, and all that was left was the little victory of his resolve.
He blinked in the moving waters. He felt the suffocation. He thrashed involuntarily. Then the blackness faded to a different black, and all those racing thoughts reached the finish line, where it was altogether still.
23
Some Kind of Afterlife
Skip had a vague recollection of being dragged out of the water and placed on a bed, of having his lungs pumped, of having his body filled with electrified needles. If that was what the angels did, he thought maybe he'd fare better with the devils.
When he awoke, he found himself back in the cell with El-erae, thinking his ordeal in the sewers was just a horrible dream. If it was, waking up wasn't a whole lot better. He feared he'd face it all again.
“One down,” El-erae said.
“Huh?” Skip felt the grit in his throat. You'd think the water would have washed it down.
“The First Death.”
“Stars.”
“That'll come later.”
“Death by stars?”
El-erae said nothing.
Skip shook his head, immediately regretting the movement. He felt like he'd been bashed with a thousand bats. Maybe that was another of the Dozen Deaths.
“So it was real,” he said.
“Only as real as everything else,” El-erae mused. The more Skip talked to her, the more he realised that she must have been some kind of Raetuumaka monk. Even her robes and the way she sat suggested this. It seemed like even when she talked, she was meditating.
“Everything's pretty damn real to me.”
“Then you will feel the Dozen Deaths all the more.”
“So they bring you to the brink.”
“Oh, no. They bring you beyond.”
“So, I really did die?”
“Yes, and they bring you back, before the final cord is cut. That is the ultimate torture, not allowing you to let go.”
“What if you don't wanna let go?” Skip asked. He saw that childhood self, clutching the bars.
El-erae looked at him with eyes of pity. “Then the pain will be greater still.”
Skip didn't want her pity, or anyone else's. He'd never gotten any before, and he didn't expect to get it now. If he got out of this mess, it'd be through his own efforts, not because someone just let him go. Maybe El-erae thought that made him his own jailer, but at least then freedom was within his grasp.
Skip groaned as he stood up. He never felt so sapped of energy before. He supposed he shouldn't complain. The dead didn't usually manage to stand up again.
He sauntered over to the cage door, resting against the bars. Perhaps they'd thought they had defeated him, that they'd won. Perhaps they, like the Alphan children, had gone home feeling victorious. He felt the overwhelming urge to prove them wrong.
“Well!” he shouted, as much as his weakened voice would allow. “Where's the next one?”
24
An Unhappy Second
The Gemini kept drifting slowly into the Unknown. Maggie sent Cada to fix the damage to the Offspring, while she rejoined Toz in the control room. She found her Second sitting in her chair, still gripping the arm rests tightly. He glanced up at her with fire in his eyes.
“Everything okay?” Maggie asked.
He scoffed. “Is everything okay? You've got some nerve.”
“We made it.”
“Barely. I'm sick of this, Maggie. I'm sick of following you to the brink. And by God, we're beyond the brink now! Why didn't you use your Executive Star to give me the reins? I would've kept us from crossing the Edge.”
“I was a little busy,” Maggie said. “Besides, Larsman's about the best pilot we've got.”
“They've got.”
“We can't think like that. Not any more. We're not two crew. We have to be one if we want to succeed out here.”
“That's easy to say when they've got all the firepower. There's no goddamn weapons on this side!”
“So?”
“Are you serious? Look at what we just faced!”
“Faced and won.”
“Won? Our leader is gone, Maggie.”
“Our leader? I'm your leader.”
“Huh. I thought we were one crew? You were our leader once, Maggie, back when you weren't afraid to use a little force.”
“You better watch your mouth, Toz. I'm not afraid to use it now.”
“Send me over to Gemini Left and you won't have to hear me at all.”
Maggie sighed. “I can't.”
“You mean you won't.”
“I don't have that authority.”
“And you claim to be our leader?”
“They assigned you to Gemini Right, Toz. That was your punishment.”
“We're out in the goddamn middle of nowhere, Maggie! They don't have any jurisdiction here. We don't even know who rules beyond the Edge. We could've just walked into a war. We've gotta be ready. We need fighting power.”
“We can win this without weapons.”
“I'm a sniper, woman! What good am I here?”
“You were useful before.”
“Yeah, blowing through gates and doors. Do you think those explosives weren't weapons?”
Maggie had tried to forget those days. She had led her band of environmentalist rebels through the defences of Omega Prime, looking to expose what the Empire was doing there, and put a stop to it. It hadn't worked. This punishment was small compared to what happened to most. She knew it wasn't mercy. As soon as she and her crew stopped being useful, stopped sending back data and reports, and discoveries and experiments, they'd be made to disappear.
“At least we didn't hurt anyone,” she said.
Toz laughed. “We didn't hurt anyone?”
“Well,” she said. “At least we didn't kill anyone.”
“Well, you know what, Maggie,” Toz replied, prodding her in the should, “maybe we should've. If there were no witnesses, we wouldn't have ended up in this hell-hole.”
25
The Mad Admiral
The crew of the starship Gemini were largely preoccupied with repairs, and catching their breath after the recent struggles. This meant Ted Nebula's attempts to free himself from Admiral Mendan's room fell on deaf ears.
“I guess we're stuck in here,” Ted said.
“Bright as well as pretty,” Mendan replied.
“Not sure about that.”
“Yes,” Mendan said. “Me neither.”
