by K. Gorman
Her stomach did a flip as the gate surface slid toward them.
She gritted her teeth and braced herself. There was a pop of air, then a sucking sound—after which, everything seemed to suck forward.
The ship slid through.
Her body dissolved into gelatin. A screech hit her ears, pounding, then the sensation of rain smacking hard into her skin. All of her skin. Her stomach stretched, rippling, along with her lungs. Her heart seemed to skip right out from between her ribs.
Then, with a pulling sensation, they were through.
Her body snapped back together like a bubble bursting on the surface of a lake.
A chorus of swearing erupted around her, both in front and behind.
“Sol’s fucking child,” Soo-jin said, each word hissing through gritted teeth. “I do not want to do that again. Ever. Can we not?”
Marc, sounding equally pained, looked to her. “We have to if you want to get back home.”
Soo-jin let out a ragged breath. Her face was red—had she been holding her breath?—and her knuckles where white as they clenched into fists at her side.
Then, her eyes fixed on the view through the front windows, and she drew in a breath.
Silence fell around the bridge.
Earth sat to the left, huge and beautiful. It was surrounded by a blue atmospheric glow that made it look soft, and patches of cloud pocked its surface, tracing shadows onto the planet below. From this angle—the gate sat off to the planet’s south, locked into a transitional tag-along orbit—she could make out a landform, and something like a coastline. Night’s umbra took a third of the picture, plunging the surface into a scattered array of darkness and artificial lighting that represented cities, towns, and major thoroughfares.
It had been a lot brighter a few centuries ago, before most of its population had either died or headed for the stars.
Tinier pricks of light floated outside the planet, catching her attention as her eyes adjusted.
She frowned.
And that would be Earth’s infamous space trash. Technically, there were three space stations and about three thousand active satellites in the mix, but the rest of it was bonafide trash. She hadn’t had to deal with it on the way out—whoever had piloted their getaway vessel had gotten that job—but she’d heard lots about it during her pilot training. Earth, in this case, served as the example on how not to pollute one’s orbit.
At least it was pretty garbage, glinting all around like a bracelet.
“You know,” said Soo-jin, her voice uncharacteristically small. “I’ve only been in the Sol system for two seconds, but it’s feeling mighty comfy here.”
“There are no dramas here,” Karin informed her. “None from Sirius, anyway.”
“There are transmission panels, aren’t there?”
“Completely shut down unless you go through military sources,” Reeve informed her.
“Damn. I don’t suppose I could bribe my way in?” She looked to him, her eyes hopeful.
Marc laughed. “With what? We’re flat broke.”
“Surely, they need things fixed,” she went on. “Maybe I’ll—”
But, before she could continue, an alarm sounded above them.
“Contact!” the technician in front of them yelled.
“Give me maps!” General Ramesh ordered.
Within seconds, the front windows were covered with holodisplay overlays. Points of light skittered across the space, locating and classifying each ship that popped up in its scans. Yellow flared in the corner—Alpha Centauri colors—closely followed by a wave of the color across the board as the scanners cross-checked each ship’s idents and labeled it in the proper allegiance. The others—green for the eighty-or-so Earth ships that hugged close to the planet, and red for the few Martian ships in the field—turned a second later.
At the far right, well down on the z axis, was the second gate, the one to Alpha Centauri. Several yellow ships surrounded it, their positions looking like a cluster of goalies around a net. One, at least, was huge. Not quite Manila-sized, but Centauri, with all of its fantastic tech, probably did not need that size. She could just imagine the firepower each of the ships packed. If they wanted to, they could likely roast an entire city down below.
Which was why Earth had its own defense.
Worryingly, none of that defense appeared to be active. More yellow than green dotted the orbits of the planet, along with pinpricks of the color among the planet’s trash ring that suggested either Centauri satellites or drones.
As she watched, three of the yellow planet-side turned in their direction and accelerated. Corvettes, she guessed, though her knowledge of the Centauri fleet was severely limited. In fact, she was pretty sure most of her knowledge came from one of the fighting games she’d played with Cookie a few times—Centauri vehicles had not been included on her flight exam.
“Comms squad, find those Centauri patches and hail them,” Guerriera said, his voice amplified by the bridge’s internal speakers. “Lieutenant Zhang, make sure the gate transverse didn’t mess with our shields.”
“Aye.”
“General, they’ve gone hot.”
Karin redoubled her grip on the railing, staring at the display in disbelief. “Sol’s child, they’re not going to fire on us, are they?”
“Looks like they’re thinking it,” Marc commented, his voice strained. He leaned back, his grip taut on the railing.
In front of them, the technician’s screen flashed a notification. The distinct Fallon ring of an incoming call sounded, albeit in a different pitch than usual.
The tech sat straighter. “Sir, incoming transmission from Centauri mainliner MTQ-233, Tarasque.”
“Put it on the main screen,” General Crane called from the command square.
A few seconds later, a massive comms window appeared next to the battle map. A woman with tawny skin appeared wearing the gray and yellow Centauri colors, her black hair cropped close to her head.
“Stand down, or we fire.”
Her system was stilted, and heavily accented, as if she didn’t often speak it.
“Guess that answers our question,” Marc murmured.
General Crane’s eyes shot up on his forehead. “Ma’am, I think you mistake our intentions—we are not standing up—yet—but preparing a defense. Perhaps we can come to the bottom of this misunderstanding, and the difference in our contact protocols. Won’t you introduce yourself? I am General Johannes Crane of the Fallon Empire fleet, here with General Ramesh, also of Fallon, and Commander Baik of Alliance High Command.”
On the screen, the woman’s eyes flashed, as if irritated. “Captain Lorraine Pocaire of the Finlai Center Core, overserving. Stand down, or we fire.”
This time, Karin felt her own eyebrows rise.
What, they aren’t even going to find out why we’re here? Try to talk to us?
“As I said, we are not standing up—not yet. We are merely defending ourselves.”
Captain Pocaire glanced off screen, distracted. Her expression twisted further.
“Stand down.”
Then, the feed cut.
“They’ve disconnected, sir,” the technician informed them.
“And oiled their guns, I see,” General Ramesh commented as several new notifications popped up on the board. Karin took comfort in his ease as he turned toward the left side of the bridge, where the majority of the arms and shield technicians stood. “I guess we’ll be exercising our shield capabilities. Prepare for incoming.”
Soo-jin’s face twisted, baring her teeth. “Gods fuck it, I totally jinxed us.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Nomiki’s tone was hard, her expression all business. As the bridge erupted into activity, her head snapped to Reeve. “Get them in the Nemina. Prepare them for Plan C.”
Wait. What? Karin spun, catching her sister before she left. “Nomiki?”
But it was Marc who pulled her away.
“We’ll explain along the way.” He took he
r arm, leading her toward the door. “We have to go.”
She stared at him.
Suns, what happened while I was asleep?
“What the fuck? Do the Centauri hate talking or something? Just skip straight to the fighting part?”
Soo-jin considered her words. “You know, I can appreciate that sentiment. There are some people I’d rather stab than talk to.”
A reference to some members of her family, most likely—her tone had that casual edge to it. Karin glanced back down the hall, distracted, half of her itching to do a U-turn and return straight to the command center. The bridge had switched into battle mode, people hooking into their safety-harness straps if they could, the rest running around to check data, screens, and orders. A three-dimensional hologram of the direct vicinity had materialized in the center of the command square, the enemy ships mapped out in yellow against the electric-blue. Her last glance back had seen Baik there, with the two generals, staring at the map field.
Her group was apparently headed for the Nemina.
To be fair, she did feel safer hunkering down within its familiar walls, and she was next-to-useless on the bridge—she had precisely zero training on the Manila’s navigation dashboards, and the place was chock-block full of people who were way more skilled than she was—but Reeve was walking right along with them, along with Soo-jin and Jon, all looking like they knew what they were doing, and from the way Nomiki had given the order…
“Is there a plan I don’t know about?” she asked.
“Yes. Sorry, you were asleep, and…” Marc gave her a guilty smile.
Suns.
“Yeah, yeah.” She snapped her attention to the front, where Reeve was leading the way. He had said something about explaining, but he had his head tucked to the side on a comms call and a netlink screen flickering in front of him. Probably not a good time to bother him. “Marc, do you know what’s happening?”
“Sort of. Details were still being finalized, but the general idea was that the Manila was too big to break atmo politely on Earth, so it was thought that the survey team would break into scout ships instead. However…” he trailed off, his gaze shifting to Reeve, who strode ahead of them. “I think that plan is being adjusted.”
“I blame Nomiki,” Soo-jin said. “She’s always up to something.”
“That, I am.” A tamp of footsteps sounded from behind them as Nomiki caught up. “And the plan is definitely being—”
A hard shudder rumbled through the ship, and the floor shook. Karin stopped dead, catching her balance.
“—adjusted,” Nomiki finished.
Karin gave the walls a wide-eyed look. “Did they just get through the shield?”
A military-grade shield on what was probably the most-defensible ship in the Fallonese fleet?
“No, it’s probably a warning shot from us,” Nomiki answered. “They were prepping them when I left. Guess Centauri got a little too close.”
What happened to us being allies?
“Did we do something to piss them off, or are they normally this trigger-happy?”
Nomiki shrugged. “I never did do much reading on them. Reeve might know.”
The group looked to him. He was still busy with his netlink, fingers fluttering over its barely-visible keyboard. He spared them the briefest glance.
“I don’t know.”
“They always came across as so genteel in netgames,” Soo-jin commented. “You know, empire full of technologically-advanced hermits whose sole goal is peace an advancement for everyone?”
At that, Reeve snorted. “No. They’re a militaristic cooperative formed of more than a thousand nations spread across their system. Each nation has a leader, similar to the old Imperial system of kings and queens, except determined by strength and leadership.” He glanced up. “Elections are more an exercise in assassination and coups, so I’ve heard. Loyalty is driven fiercely by the ambition to live in one of several capital cities in its system’s more desirable planets.”
“Ergo, not genteel, peace-loving hermits,” Karin said after a moment, giving Reeve an assessing look.
Nomiki had once said that he held a position far above what his face rank of Sergeant granted, and she’d long believed it—it took an individual with certain skill to come even close to being her sister’s ‘minder,’ and she had just run into him enjoying a brief period of peace on the Manila’s bridge. Now, she thought she understood a bit more of what his precise role in the Fallon military entailed.
He met her gaze. “No.”
“I guess something got lost in the translation,” Soo-jin commented.
They ducked into the lower hangar deck and into a hive of activity. Pilots, ship-based mechanics, and technicians jogged and scurried to and from the six fighters on this deck—despite this being the scout and supply ship deck, they always kept a few handy, just in case the other decks were otherwise occupied or the scout and supply ships needed an exit escort—some dragging floating anti-grav carts after them, others simply carrying one or two tools. The smell of oil cloyed the air, sticking to the inside of her nose like an aftertaste. The air was muggy, close, but with a dampness that put a chill down her back.
The Nemina came into sight mid-way down the deck, her wedge-shaped form clunky and outdated amid the sleek new curves of her peers. A mid-sized ship, about the length of three and a half city buses from the tip of her nose to the end of the detachable cargo containers currently attached to her rear, she had a fixed-wing design and a continuation of her thick, squat body that rose up and forward, containing the crew cabins and the Mess, and ended in into the pointed, triangular head of the bridge. Combined with her large body and spindly-looking landing gear, she looked like a huge, misshapen praying mantis.
At least, she did if one came from the front. From the side, she looked more like a flying boat with legs. But she was fast, and she was hers—well, Marc’s, technically, but pilots took a few liberties with ownership when it came to the vessels they flew—and that’s all Karin really cared about.
The ramp was already down. Her feet clunked onto it, and she felt the give and bounce as everyone else followed suit.
Reeve strode faster, finally looking up from his netlink. “The original plan was for you to stay here, then drop out with the other scouts once we drew closer to Earth and received atmo permission. We were to lead a small convoy of scout ships down to recon the old compound site—both, if we could figure out coordinates to the other—and report back to the Manila.”
“But…?” she prompted.
“But now, we’re getting fired at, so things are changing.” Nomiki flashed her a grin. “Don’t worry. Manila can handle this sort of thing.”
“Alpha Centauri is about five hundred years more advanced than we are,” Karin stated.
“Yeah, but we’re way cooler.”
Right. She supposed Centauri wasn’t really five hundred years ahead of them—that had simply been the length of their isolationist period before they’d come back to finish the gate link with Sol. Both connected systems—Sol and Sirius, since Gliese had yet to finish linking their gate—had received the benefits of their advancement at that time and then built on them.
All three systems would have kept advancing at a similar pace, after that. At least, she assumed so. Fallon certainly hadn’t been sleeping during that time. And neither had the Alliance.
As for Earth…
Well, it wasn’t exactly a hot power anymore.
“How are things changing?” Marc ducked as he turned the corner to the center hallway—a more instinctual habit on his part, since the Nemina’s hallways could accommodate even his near two-meter frame.
“It might just be us and Reeve.” Nomiki shrugged. “Not sure yet. Go up to the bridge. Karin—the Nemina has been reinstated as military, so she should be able to plug right into Manila’s system.”
“Shit.” He twisted back, heading for the rear of the ship. “I better check up on Cookie.”
Good th
ing they never stripped the old comms wiring. Since Reeve had been flying last time, she hadn’t paid too much attention to the advanced comm controls that had shown up on the right-hand display—no need to when they weren’t staying on the Nemina, and especially no need to when they were off breaking into private laboratories under the two governments’ noses, even if one of those governments had basically given them the okay.
She paused to throw her wallet into her cabin, let the rest pass her, then continued on, up the hallway and around the L-curve that took her onto the bridge.
Soo-jin had taken her usual seat near the sensor station, and Jon was hanging out behind the seats with Nomiki, but she was surprised to find that Reeve sat in the co-pilot’s seat instead of the pilot’s. His netlink was propped at an angle on the dashboard, two windows showing comms logs. He reached forward and began flicking switches. A second later, the co-pilot’s screen fluctuated to life, briefly flashing an empty communications dashboard before the feeds populated.
He glanced back at her. “Can you do a spin-out maneuver?”
She halted. “Er… yes?”
“Good. I’ll send you the approach vectors.”
Then, he picked up his netlink and stood. Nomiki slipped into his seat as he stepped back, retreating farther down the corridor.
Karin watched him go. In the next second, the Nemina gave a cool shiver as the Manila shook again.
Spin-out was precisely how it sounded. The Nemina would drop, get shaken to ten kinds of hells in a spin burst not unlike a rock dropped into a tornado, and she’d have to plan how to come out of it.
“Sol,” she swore, then pushed herself up to flick the engine ignition switches above her seat, only to find that they had already been engaged.
“I had Cookie switch them over about ten minutes ago,” Marc explained.
Good. Ten minutes would give them a near-finished warm-up.
“Okay.”
Beside her, Nomiki reached over to the navigation dashboard and input a few keys. The screen switched on, and, after a few seconds’ inactivity, populated with a map of the space field around them—obviously plugged into the Manila’s system, since the enemy was outlined in orange already and the Nemina’s onboard sensors hadn’t yet started up. A gauge reading on the left told her that the engines were just about warmed up.
