Injection Burn

by Jason M. Hough

  “Look, I don’t know how it is you are here, or why, but there must be a reason Eve kept you alive. Healed you, as she did all of us.”

  “This Eve, I presume you mean the Builder bitch that’s been torturing me for days? Weeks? Well, guess what, Skyler, I’m not interested. You know me, so you tell Captain Tsandi that I’m not one to mess around. I’m taking this ship one way or another. If you want to see Vanessa alive again, you’ll trade me someone who can fly this thing. Simple as that. The navigator is my preference, so send him. Then I’ll be on my way, and you can go back to whatever it is you traitorous fools think you are doing.”

  “Alex, please—”

  “Ten minutes. At the airlock. Vanessa for the one called Xavi. End of negotiations.”

  He pulled the metal disk, no bigger or heavier than a hole-punched scrap of paper, away from his neck and flicked it toward the other end of the ship. Alex turned to Jared. “Watch these two while I figure out how to undo that umbilical. In case Skyler and his friends try something.”

  Jared, busy binding Vanessa’s hands behind her back with a zip tie, did not reply.

  “Find any meds?” Alex asked him.

  “Christ,” Jared replied. “Stop fucking asking.” He drifted off, toward the bridge.

  Alex watched him go, a knot of worry tightening in his belly. He’d not seen such a random angry outburst from his sergeant before. “No worries. I’ll watch the prisoners,” Alex called after him. “Take a look at the umbilical, then get yourself some meds, man. I mean it.”

  —

  After a minute Alex left Vanessa tied to the chair and took Beth with him to the center of the ship where he’d seen a kitchenlike area. In all the excitement he’d forgotten just how hungry he was, and surely some food and perhaps a coffee bulb would do Jared some good. Bound at wrists and ankles, Beth was no better than deadweight, but leaving her next to Vanessa would no doubt compel them to plot some kind of escape. Besides, he still wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. So he pushed her ahead of him, taking care not to slam her into bulkheads or other gear. He just wanted to get home, and these people had a ship.

  A weird ship, but as long as it served the purpose what difference did it make?

  After all this time…Her words still echoed in his mind.

  As they drifted through the narrow spaces, a sense of discomfort began to build in Alex Warthen. He’d been too focused on the task at hand to think about it until now.

  The lines of this vessel. They weren’t just foreign, they were clean. Precise. Manufactured. Platz had that capability, at least at one point, but it had all gone to shit when the disease came. So when had this been made? It looked too new to be pre-Elevator.

  “Beth?” he asked, stopping her and turning her to face him. “When was this spacecraft made? No, never mind that—what year is it now?”

  “3911,” she said, without hesitation.

  Alex let go of her. His mind reeled. “Thirty…thirty-nine…how can that be?”

  Beth tilted her head and squinted at him. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  The glare he fixed on her made the woman flinch. “Listen, and listen close. I’ve been through horrors here you can’t imagine, and my patience is running damn thin.”

  She lifted her chin a little. “You said something about torture, to Skyler. What happened?”

  “That’s right. Eve’s not the virtuous ally he seems to think she is. And I’m the one asking questions here. How is it that the year is 3911? Give me straight answers if you want to make it out of this.”

  Something flashed behind her eyes. A hint of admiration, or something like it.

  “This is so odd,” Beth said, almost a whisper. “Speaking with you. Me of the distant future from your perspective, and you of the distant past from mine.”

  “I don’t…Answer the question, Beth.”

  She waved her hand, as if the question mattered not at all. Her words were clipped and dismissive. “Simple. You were in flight all that time, moving very fast. Time dilation—”

  “I understand the concept,” Alex snapped. “It doesn’t explain how you’re here. Or where the hell we even are, for that matter.”

  “The answer to that is complicated.”

  “Try me. Not going to ask again.”

  He learned much then, and once Beth got started she required no more threats or prodding. She spoke of how Skyler and his cohorts had made some sort of deal with the Builders, and gone off on their ship to help free a world now known as Carthage. The same ship Alex had been living inside, though no mention of that had been made in the aftermath. History had chalked him up as one of the many deaths to occur that day, along with Jared, Grillo, and everyone else on the losing side. And Skyler and his merry band? Remembered as heroes. Legends. Yes, they’d gone to help the Builders, the architects of Earth’s apocalypse, but in exchange the subhuman plague had been switched off. And there’d been other gifts, too.

  Despair and anger began to boil up inside him then. He knew, at some deep level, that he’d been on the wrong side of history, even as it was unfolding. He’d made deals with Russell Blackfield, and then later with Grillo. He’d done it because, though he knew they were rotten men at heart, they seemed likely to win. More than anything, Alex had just wanted normalcy. Peace. The chance to live a quiet life with his greatest worry being the occasional brawl at Ten Backward, the pub on Gateway Station. Being on the wrong side seemed a reasonable price for that.

  In his heart he’d already accepted that he’d lost. Been killed, even. What had not occurred to him was that he could be anywhere but above Earth, still inside that godforsaken ship, still in that time. To learn instead they were many light-years away, and so distant in history as to be a minor footnote in the chapter called “The Heroics of Skyler Luiken and Friends.”

  She told him of the nearly two thousand years that had passed on Earth. How humanity had bounced back, and brilliantly so. Colonized the solar system. Words tumbled out of her as she went on for half a minute on how they folded. Techno-babble that Alex cared little about. What he cared about was what it all meant. How this ship could have caught up to Eve. They’d learned to travel to distant places almost instantly.

  And there it was. Hope renewed. The prospect of escape, returned. Earth may not be the Earth he’d left, but it was still home. There was a way back.

  Alex left the woman to drift. He held a bulkhead with one hand and closed his eyes, allowing his mind to process the simple truth that he was an element of history now. As distant in memory for those who now called Earth home as Genghis Khan was to him. What kind of life would he find for himself there, if he did make it back? He’d be some sort of curiosity. A celebrity, or a zoo exhibit. Worse, it was a history he evidently fell on the wrong side of. From the way this woman talked, it was Skyler and the others who’d come out on the right side. Alex searched himself and found, to his surprise, that he couldn’t really argue with that.

  Don’t do this, he told himself. He needed a plan, a goal, or he was lost. And right now, he saw no other option that held any appeal.

  His future was on Earth. This he knew as some sort of internal truth. Fate, or whatever. He would go back. He’d cash his celebrity-status check and parlay it into some power. People would listen to him. Perhaps he could earn some political clout and do something to guide the future of his home.

  He looked at Beth. Really looked at her, for the first time. She didn’t seem overly concerned at her predicament, but then her entire manner was almost emotionless. Matter-of-fact. He began to worry she might be lying. He was pretty good at reading people, but not this one. The only flash of emotion she’d shown was upon recognizing him. A history buff, evidently. A student of Skyler-lore, as if that held the same prestige as an Arthurian scholar. Wonderful.

  To her this must be like meeting the Beatles, or the Apollo astronauts, centuries upon centuries after their contribution to history. Well, fine. If he was going to play that card, might a
s well start now.

  “Look,” he said, righting her until her eyes met his. “I was there. In the Key Ship, when everything happened. I can tell you what really went on. Come with me, and I’ll tell you everything that happened. Everything. I remember it all like it was just days ago. You can have the story, firsthand.”

  With each word her eyes widened. Just as he’d hoped.

  Then she blinked. Her entire face changed, her posture. She looked suddenly puzzled, and her gaze no longer held his. “Your friend left,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  Beth nodded toward the airlock.

  Alex whirled, propelled himself to the closed door, and glanced through the porthole. He saw only the white umbilical tube, and the darkness at the far end. Of Jared Larsen there was no sign.

  “The hell?”

  Had the man misunderstood? Gone to search for medication inside the Builder monstrosity?

  The knot in Alex’s gut became a painful certainty. Something was very wrong with his friend. Alex had seen the behavior before, and feared it more than anything.

  It was goddamn plague. The subhuman virus. Had Eve lied about pulling it out of him? Or had her test done its damage all the same? The side effects lingering despite the disease being gone?

  He remained there, at the window, for some time. His hands gripped the handle of the airlock door but did not move. Nothing to be done about it, he told himself. If the man was infected, or merely broken by Eve’s torture, that was that, and Alex could not help him.

  Alex let go of the handle, and backed away, mouthing a silent farewell. He could not leave this ship, not while he had hostages, not while it was his only ticket out of this place, and so could only hope that an enraged, diseased Jared, as he prowled the dark halls of the alien ship, would not run into the navigator, Xavi.

  The Chameleon

  6.AUG.3911 (Earth Actual)

  “I’LL GO, BOSS,” the man named Xavi said. “I’ll make the swap. I’ll get the ’flower back from this asshole.”

  “No,” Gloria said.

  The sharpness in her voice cut like a knife. Skyler flinched, for her gaze remained firmly on him, despite the looming presence of a very anxious Xavi at her shoulder. Skyler met her glare and held it, as if staring into her eyes might reveal something about her. And it did, after a fashion. What he saw there was nothing short of bottled fury.

  “Tell me about this man Alex,” she said.

  Skyler considered that. He’d been pursued by Warthen’s security goons on Gateway Station once, managed to escape only to crash the Melville on the way down. He’d left his crew behind, some alive, some not. “I don’t know him well. He’s efficient. All business. Principled, when I knew him, but I can only imagine what he’s been through aboard this ship.” Eve hid his presence from us, he added silently. Now why the hell would she do that? Why would she torture him? “I’d take him at his word.”

  “Will he be reasonable? Negotiate?”

  “Look, until that conversation I had no idea he was alive. If I’m honest, I’d forgotten all about him.”

  “He wasn’t,” Prumble said. “Alive, I mean. I snapped the bastard’s neck myself, before he could strangle Vanessa.”

  “So Eve fixed him,” Skyler said. “Or cloned him. Something. We can ask her why, why he’s here at all, when she wakes up. For now, it doesn’t matter. He’s confused, pissed off, and he’s got Vanessa.”

  “And the Wildflower. And Beth,” Xavi added.

  “Forgive me, Captain, if I agree with Xavi here. This cannot stand.”

  Gloria took a long, measured breath. “Then we’re at an impasse. It’s easy for you to accept his terms, but it’s impossible for me. With Xavi he’d have total control of my ship, damaged though it may be.”

  “Something tells me you have another idea,” Skyler said.

  She nodded. “Take the ship back by force.”

  The words settled, and a silence descended over the artificial glade. Not absolute silence, though.

  “What is that noise?” Tim asked.

  At first Skyler heard nothing, but in seconds his ears adjusted to the sudden quiet of the room. Tim had it right. A humming sound. Distant, almost imperceptibly quiet.

  “Air processors?” Gloria asked.

  “Can’t be,” Skyler said. “The ship is totally shut down. The only way to reactivate it is purely mechanical, and only myself and Tania know where the switch is.” He turned, half-expecting to find Tania had left the area, but she still drifted next to him, her eyes narrowed in total concentration.

  “Something of yours, then,” Tania said to Gloria. “You docked with us. A resonant vibration coming through.”

  The sound grew. Gloria tilted her head, straining to hear. “It’s coming from the nose of the ship, not the tail, so it can’t be us.”

  “The Swarm,” Xavi said. “Has to be.”

  “Hold on. We don’t know that,” Gloria said.

  “We do,” her navigator replied. “They weren’t far behind when we got here. What else could it be? C’mon, time’s run out, boss.” Some silent conversation went on between them. An expression of urgency from Xavi. A glare of reproach from his captain.

  “How about you let us through,” Sam said. “Vaughn and I will take care of this swarm.”

  “You won’t,” Gloria said. “None of us will.”

  “Not with that attitude,” Sam shot back, grinning ferociously. She moved forward and, to Skyler’s surprise, Gloria drifted aside to let her and Vaughn by. As Sam floated toward the airlock and grabbed her helmet she glanced back at Skyler. “We’ll check it out,” she said. “If it’s the Scipios, I assume it’s safe to break the radio silence?”

  “I think we’re beyond radio silence already,” Skyler said, with a glance toward the newcomers. “But for all we know they can listen in. Use it sparingly.”

  “Understood.”

  “Be careful, Sam.”

  She did a mock curtsey, impressive in zero-g, and left.

  “Boss,” Xavi was saying to Gloria. “If the Swarm is here we’ve got to go now. Get our ship back and run while they’re feasting on this place.” He glanced at Skyler. “No offense, mate.”

  For a moment Gloria simply stared into the empty space between her and Skyler. Coming to grips with something. Skyler recognized the look. He’d been there before. The razor’s edge of fight or flight. Lives hanging in the balance.

  “Why are you out here?” Skyler asked her, point-blank. “This is more than simple curiosity about Carthage.”

  She glanced up at him. “They want our imploder technology. And they want to find Earth.”

  “I’d think that would make you want to stay as far away as possible, then.”

  To his surprise, she nodded. “We would, except that we lost a ship here recently. We don’t think they’ve found it yet, because if they had they’d have shot us out of the sky the moment we arrived.”

  “Uh, they kinda did, boss,” Xavi said.

  Gloria shook her head. “They could have annihilated us, Xavi. You know that.”

  Skyler ignored their exchange. “If you lost this technology here then we both have an interest in staying, in fighting these bastards. Don’t run, Gloria. Keep your crew here and help us. You find this lost ship, we put an end to these Scipios once and for all.”

  “Mate,” Xavi replied, “there’s seven of you. The Scipios have millions of ships, and that’s just the Swarm Blockade. The first line of defense.”

  Skyler kept his gaze on Gloria. For a second he thought he’d broken through, but in the end she only shook her head. “We can’t let them get our ship. If they do, Earth becomes a target. I don’t think we can survive another apocalypse.”

  Her tone, and the implication of her words, told him everything. Her goal was not to run, but to destroy her ship before the Scipios could get to it.

  “Go then,” he heard himself say. It was somehow easier with Sam gone. She would have clocked him and taken over, r
ight then and there. Not one for the long view, her. “Retake your ship. Free Vanessa if you can. She’s tough as nails, she’ll find her way back.”

  Gloria and her crew were already on the move. At the airlock she took one last look at Skyler. “The scouts were very spread out. It will be some time before they are here in force.”

  “What are you saying?”

  She lifted her chin slightly. “I’m telling you to run, Skyler Luiken. Run while you still can.”

  With that, she left.

  —

  Sam flung herself with abandon through the darkened spaces of the Chameleon.

  Had anyone else been with her she would have had to stop at every corner to let them catch up, but not with Vaughn. The man was right beside her at each intersection, as if an extension of her own mind. Truly her other half.

  In the long stretches of boredom on this voyage his constant presence had begun to annoy her. Always agreeing, always trying to say what he thought she’d say or what she wanted to hear. Defending her, that rankled the most. Sam had never needed that, or wanted it.

  But the excursion to that planet, the mission to disguise the ship, had reminded her of the pluses. They shared a bond in combat. A connection. They thought the same, they both fucking got it. And now, to be here, on the move, with him beside her, had a way of pushing all the other bullshit aside. She welcomed it, this clarity, this focus. In a way she felt glad these humans-of-the-future had brought the war to them.

  Vaughn pointed at his ear, and she nodded. The vibration was getting louder, and not entirely because they raced toward it. Even when they stopped to get their bearings the noise grew. Sam didn’t trust the suit, not entirely, but the noise it conveyed no longer resembled a fan moving air.

  It sounded like a drill.

  Like a symphony of drills.

  She took the lead. Eve had left a buffer of sorts between her outer hull and the inner. A space full of frozen water and other materials meant to deaden any stray heat or other emissions that might try to radiate out of the ship during its run of the blockade.