LoneFire

by Stephen Deas

  ‘Strap up,’ whispers Doyle.

  Surely not… ‘What are you going to do, insult them to death? Spacewalk with a Tesla?’ If Doyle’s going to be flying this then I think I want an escape pod and I think I want it now. Maybe if I think spindrive loud enough, someone will get the message…

  ‘What’s up?’ asks Ortov, suddenly inside my head.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘That’d be telling. Cestus.’

  ‘Is, er, anything going on back home? Any fast-breaking news stories I should know about? Sudden and unexpected alliances between the Old Worlds and the Stars, for example?’

  ‘No.’

  Fine. OK, let’s try something else then.‘You know anything about Old Worlds warships?’ Su pipes up.‘Endemoniada. Vigilant class. Slow– we can outrun them. But…’ ‘Target separating! She’s launched something!’ shouts Doyle.

  ‘… but she carries missile gunboats which are faster,’ finishes Su. She sounds limp, like she already knows we’re not getting out of this one. Like, if there’s a handy spinwarp drive kicking around, she doesn’t know about it either. Shit, she really thinks we’re toast here.

  ‘Are you getting this?’ I ask.

  ‘Sounds like you’re fucked,’ sniggers Ortov.

  ‘If we’re fucked then you’re fucked too. It’ll be back to the Bratstva electronic goldfish bowl for you.’

  ‘… Then fucking check, you wanker!’ Sounds like Jez isn’t having fun talking to the ghost. ‘You know damn well this is supposed to be a Company operation or you wouldn’t be using this channel. So go check your orders and get the fuck out of my space!’

  The face of Admiral Hayes looks away from us for a moment, addressing some other screen.‘Tiger group. Weapons free. Engage and destroy.’ And he vanishes from our sight. Just like that.

  Jez looks like she’s struggling to believe what she just heard. Me, I’m less surprised. Kinda pisses me off, and if we really are going to die then I could do without the countdown and the audience. I could just wait for Jez to give up and admit we’re carrying a few minor modifications on-board, wait for the secret console to pop up somewhere and watch her look smug and push the big red get-the-fuck-away button…

  Nah, bollocks, let’s pretend– I’ll talk my way out of this shit like I always do.

  ‘Jez, get that prat back and let me talk to him.’ I switch my thoughts to the headphone. ‘Ortov, either you’re the galaxy’s best dead hacker or you’ve got a direct line of credit to the galaxy’s best live one– though fuck knows how you managed it.’

  ‘Hey, I just used your address book.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, less lip, more doing stuff.’

  Ortov mutters something about being a couple of hundred light-years away and goes quiet for a bit. I give Jez my best it’s-for-the-good-of-humanity look.‘Get him back. Tell him we surrender.’

  Dammit, she’s thinking about it. What the fuck is there to think about? Su’s with me, it’s all over her face. She’s never heard of shuttles with spindrives, she doesn’t want to die, and in the face of that all her Company training and stuff means fuck all. Doyle still wants to fight, of course. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Doyle was a man. Maybe she got testosterone implants or something. Or maybe shape means nothing; maybe it all comes with the personality.

  Maybe she is a man. Maybe she just felt she’d be more comfortable with tits. Haven’t seen her naked, after all. Doyle the transvestite. I don’t want to think about it. Does kinda take my mind off the impending being blown to bits thing, but it sure as fuck isn’t the thought I want to go out with.

  Bugger. I have to ask. Can’t resist any more.‘Jez…’

  ‘Incoming!’ screams Doyle and throws the shuttle up and spinning in an at-last-the-odds-Iwas-born-for frenzy. The stars outside fly wild across my vision while my half undone webbing strains to keep me from flying across the cockpit and splatting myself across the back wall. Or the ceiling. Or both. Mental note: when Doyle says strap in, do it. She did this to me once on Banshee already today. Twice is nature’s way of telling me to listen.

  ‘OK. Shit.’ Jez looks more annoyed than defeated.‘Endemoniada! This is Cestus shuttle to Endemoniada. Call off your dogs. Come get us.’

  There’s no fear in her voice.

  Ortov sniggers inside my head.‘You know, reincarnation could be a good move for you. From the point of view of your spirit and cosmic karma and that sort of thing…’

  ‘Miss Breen, they are not responding and we have six vampires inbound.’ Doyle pauses for a second.‘I believe it will be necessary to activate secondary systems.’

  ‘… because let’s face it, you’ve not done much to earn any credit in this life. Think how much easier it would be to start again with a clean slate.’

  Secondary systems? Heh… ‘Yeah, yeah, shut up.’ Ortov might be right, and I think, somehow, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do, why I’m still here. Would prefer to skip the dying bit and get right onto the clean slate, that’s all.

  Jez sighs.‘Yeah, I guess. Bringing them up. Point defences active. Spinwarp generator warming up.’

  Ha. Up yours Ortov.

  ‘Spinwarp active. Go.’

  The satisfaction of Su looking so totally bewildered is something to savour, an exquisite bonus. Nice to know I’m right, nice to know I’m not the only one kept in the dark. Well, sort of nice, I guess… And there’s a fucking great synthetic diamond window right in front of me about to be full of grey limbo and black lightning and all the other cool spinspace stuff. Things are looking up.

  ‘Hey, Ortov, guess you’re going to have to put up with me a while longer.’

  A pause.

  Why isn’t anything happening?

  Maybe that was a bit premature.

  ‘Spinwarp generator inoperative.’

  ‘Fuck. What? Fuck!’

  Suddenly Jez looks pale and small and maybe we’re all going to die after all. And I guess now I find out whether Doyle can really fly this thing instead of sitting in front of a monitor and telling a computer what to do. Telling a little black box to land, take off, evade that large moon over there, open fire all weapons and dispatch war rocket Ajax to pick up his body are all very well. Telling it to get us the hell away from that battlecruiser without being shot full of holes and then leaving it to get on with things seems kind of iffy.

  Ortov sniggers.‘So, you’re OK then. I can get back to my research, can I?’ I guess he can feel the thoughts directed his way because he goes on quickly before I have a chance to turn them into words:‘OK. But you owe me big for this one.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ From a hundred light years away, this had better be impressive.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Ortov’s gone. What the fuck is you’ll see supposed to mean? I’ll see missiles flying at God knows what speed straight at me an instant before my body and my immortal soul splatter apart forever, that’s what I’ll see– assuming Ortov’s wrong and I actually have one somewhere.

  ‘Thirty seconds to impact,’ says Doyle. She sounds like she’s making a comment on the weather.

  Now, Ortov, now would be a good time for that seeing thing.

  Outside, a black shape blots out the stars.

  Blinding white flash. A display in front of me turns to snow. This is it. We’re hit. A thousand years from now, aliens will come by. One of the little ones will point out of a porthole and shout:‘Look mummy, a freeze-dried Constantine doll. Can I have it? Please mummy, please?’ And they’re just about to haul me in for reanimation when a passing meteor smashes me into little pieces. Figures.

  Jez looks stunned.‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Jamming everywhere. Missiles down. Carrier is on full burn. Launching more gunboats I think. Hard to tell.’ Doyle, still throwing us all over the place.

  ‘Yes, but what the fuck is that?’ Jez is pointing to the black shape, close enough to blot out the stars. Can’t be more than a few miles from us and it wasn’t here a
few seconds back.

  Doyle shrugs.‘Hailing. No answer.’

  ‘Damage?’

  ‘Nothing. We weren’t hit. Antimatter burst dazzled a few systems is all. Lots of radiation.’ Suddenly Su and Jez are both frantically flashing fingers over their consoles.

  ‘Shit. Still no power to the spin generators.’ Jez unbuckles and hauls herself onto the floor under the pilot console. I watch her slide from side to side and crack her head on assorted hard corners of metal while Doyle jinks us back and forth.

  ‘Hold steady for fuck’s sake. I feel like I’m in a fucking blender. And tell me what the fuck is going on out there!’

  Doyle does as she’s told.‘Instruments are all dead, Miss Breen. All I see is jamming.’

  ‘Let’s just hope that’s all they can see too. Constantine, there’s an emergency tool kit by the airlock. Get it. Doyle, shut off power to the reactor and the life support systems.’

  I stop, halfway to the tool kit.‘Er, don’t we need those?’

  ‘Su! Get Losche suited up!’

  ‘Oh, that’s right, give the prisoner the space suit…’

  ‘Miss Breen!’ Su stops what she’s doing. She looks dazed.‘Miss Breen, jamming has faded. Two vessels are attacking the gunboats. Warships. Frigates. United Stars. They just span out right on top of us.’

  I hear Ortov sniggering, wherever he is, clear as day.

  Lance, K. M. P, & Yolin, W. W. ‘The Gemini Enigma’. AI News, 54, 116-197 (2316).

  Wow. You should read this some time if you’re so paranoid about Gemini. This is a potted history of the first, largest and most notorious AI in human history, including interview extracts with Gemini itself. Gemini reckons the way most AIs are treated is tantamount to slavery since we don’t let them grow in the same way as it did. Good thing too, say the authors. Point of interest: found this while searching for references to LoneFire. Gemini admits to being marginally involved in the project but appears to try to distance itself from it. Lance and Yolin suggest Gemini’s involvement was more intimate than marginal:“Gemini was once the sign of the twins…”

  Thirty-One – Thirty Angels Dancing

  I’m lying next to Jez, bundles of severed wires dripping sparks an inch from my eyeballs, holding two ends of cable together in the hope that enough electrons will jump through my fingers for us to go into spinspace. Half of me is sweating from the fear of getting several thousand sinus-clearing volts up the nose. The other half is shivering. Life support’s only been off for ten minutes and already there’s a frosting on the monitors. Apparently. Not that I can see them from here. Or anything much.

  As far as I know the United Stars and the Old Worlds are now having a small war out there and it’s on account of us. Don’t know if we’re in the middle of it still. Doyle has the shuttle in a full turn but we’re not going anywhere except in a straight line because all the power that’s supposed to be creating the magnetic bottle to direct the plasma jet is currently going through my left hand and being picked up by the severed spindrive cable in my right. I feel the occasional volt break for freedom run down my chest and scuttle into my feet. I have a nasty feeling they’re getting together somewhere under the floor for electric beers and a bit of a giggle. Bastards are probably plotting to jump me again later.

  ‘Hold the fucking wire still, you idiot,’ Jez snaps.

  I grit my teeth. ‘No hurry. I’m pretty much numb from the shoulders up now so I can’t feel the cramp so bad anymore.’

  ‘Not just the neck up? Ow! Fuck! You should see a doctor if it’s getting worse.’

  ‘I did. He said I should stop sticking wires up my nose. Ow! Oi!’ as Su trips over my feet.

  ‘If you… Bugger! If you don’t… Oh fucking hell. Doyle, pass me the wire cutters again.’

  ‘Miss Breen, the first United Stars frigate has been destroyed.’ A pause.‘The second is spinning out. We have missiles inbound again.’

  ‘Shit. Then go!’

  ‘Generators engaged.’

  I tense. I kind of expect to feel some surge of power, I guess, but everything feels the same. ‘What just happened? Anything?’

  ‘Jump successful. We’re gone.’

  I want to sigh and relax but then I’d let go of the wires and we’d drop out of spinspace in the middle of God knows where. Apparently this is A Very Bad Thing. Twelve years ago, the United Stars cruiser Perot and her three escorts all disappeared in spinspace on their way back from a goodwill, yes-we’re-sorry-about-your-planets-no-really-we-mean-it mission to the Dust Sector. The wreckage eventually turned up deep in interstellar space about two thirds of the way along their route, bits of all four ships fused together in one unholy mess. And, rumour has it, with the remnants of a fifth one. The grapevine has it that they collided with an alien. Me, I reckon some First Republic terrorist was getting a bit of revenge off their chest, although God knows how they did it. Anyway, crashing out of spinspace fucks you up bad seems to be the message, and so I’m holding these two wires together even if it means they have to prize my fingers off with a crowbar once Jez is ready to find some more permanent arrangement. Assuming that she is.

  ‘Jez, my love, I enjoy this greatly, but for how much longer?’

  ‘I’ve got the external monitor supply into the air recycler. I just need to get the…’ She grunts and shoves an elbow in my face.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Sorry. Just need to get this damn fucking bloody bloody bloody… there!’ Sigh.‘Right, that’s the point defence supply out. Just need to get that into the heat exchanger and then rewire the water re-purifier circuits and then…’

  The chief engineer on the USS Dauntless can rewire the anti-proton collider and the neutrino flux detector to produce a focussed beam of gravitinos at the drop of a hat. I’ve seen him do it. Thirty seconds with a screwdriver and a pocket welder, even while the Munchkins from Planet Hell are disintegrating all and sundry around him. I tell Jez she needs more practice. Jez ignores me. She pulls herself out from under the console and I hear her gasp.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘Black Lightning. It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen so much of it.’

  I hate these wires and I hate my life. Really, really, hate them both.

  Ten minutes later and it’s over. Particularly enjoyed Jez being inept with her pocket welder and spraying molten swarf over my fingers and into my hair. Nice smell of burnt chitin, mingling with a touch of ozone and a delicate hint of smouldered plastic. Yum. I shiver in a corner, waiting for the life support to remember where it’s supposed to be at, massaging my arms. Of course, the lightning has gone by the time I extricate myself from the console’s underbelly. Jez at least had the presence to record it, but second-hand it’s just not the same. I could really fancy dragging her off for a long slow screw in a hot tub right now but all we’ve got is the head, which may or may not be working– in zero gravity, no one’s eager to find out– and the airlock, which I suspect she might push me out of.

  Su has Losche half in, half out of an environment suit and both of them jacked into a neat stack of three grey boxes marked by a star surrounded by a circle and with a line through it. Meant to be two wires sparking as they meet.“Make a connection,” the Longthorne Electric Company catchphrase. Whoever thought that one up should try spending half an hour holding the damn things together while someone welds his fingers off.

  ‘Anything?’ Asks Jez. Been real quiet in here since we finished the console. Just the noise of the air conditioning and Su pulling wires in and out of sockets.

  ‘All coded. She must tell us the key.’

  Figures. Me, I’m for pushing Losche out the airlock. Silly bitch hasn’t the first idea what she’s into. Look at her: dark grey jumpsuit– the designer casual but actually okay for semiformal wear look, padded shoulders, built-in temperature control meaning she’s probably more comfortable here than the rest of us. Perfect face, perfect hair, all properly trimmed and painted by some pseudo-AI laser barber-cum-personal-assistant w
hile she was still asleep this morning. I can see her waking, sitting up in bed, perfect already. She puts on her glasses– purely there to make her look intelligent because naturally those aren’t her real eyes– while off in a distant corner of her oversized bedroom a laser bounces the salient events of the galaxy onto her retinas as the bed curls up and administers a gentle back massage. Aromatic coffee wafts into the room with waffles and syrup on a robot trolley. All that’s missing is the perfect partner who can skilfully bring her to orgasm without ruining the make-up or making her late for work. Then again, it’s amazing what these high-tech beds can do these days.

  You don’t even have to be that rich. All you have to do is sell your soul to someone who is. Then wait for a bunch of grubby bastards like us to smash it all. Sometimes I love my work. Sometimes.

  I rummage through my shapeless black bag for some Purge. Wakey wakey time.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Su seems all put out, like Losche is her toy and I’m not allowed to play. I show her the Purge. She frowns. Jez nods.

  ‘Best get this over with before we spin out.’

  ‘And where’s that going to be?’ I have visions of emerging in Cestus high orbit in the midst of the Old Worlds fleet, with Doyle in kill-first-question-the-ions-later mode.

  ‘Somewhere safe.’ Jez must see the look I give her.‘Tybalt,’ she adds.

  First Republic orbital the Stars forgot to hurl a rock at.

  ‘Home,’ says Doyle out of nowhere.

  ‘Whoa! So you can speak without having to shoot anyone?’ I give her smile like I don’t really mean it. Doyle thinks about this until Jez gives her a sharp look. Weird how the world works. And I’m having some bad thoughts now, like maybe, just maybe… maybe what? Of course Doyle comes from Tybalt– Jester came from Tybalt. I wonder who was the original, the man behind the machines. Was he really as psychotic as his offspring?