Orbital Burn

by K. A. Bedford

  Lou’s mother’s voice filled her head. “My dearest Blue,” she opened.

  “Oh, God!” Lou screamed. “I always hated that bloody name!” It was the baby name her mother used when trying to calm Lou down after one of their huge screaming rows.

  Jen cut in, “That’s how it opens. Now, listen up.”

  Read fast! She wondered what kind of sensors the cops might be using against her. She probably wouldn’t show up that well on IR, she thought. But what if they had sensors that followed drifting tissue flakes, individual skin cells, which were always coming off regular, healthy people — and would be coming off Lou’s dying flesh like a very fine, very bad dandruff. She thought about the budget these cops might have.

  Damn.

  “Louise, I don’t know what to say to you after all this time. It’s so long since we talked, the way we should have talked all along.”

  Lou found herself feeling very emotional all of a sudden. And furious, too. It was Jen’s voice, but Lou could hear her mother’s cadences and rhythms in it as if she had been speaking to her. The sound was sufficient; it got to her.

  “Your father and I have decided not to renew our marriage contract.”

  Lou blurted, “God! How come?” Her parents had always seemed barnacled together, like you’d need explosives to separate them.

  Jen carried on. “I’m leaving the company, too, to work on my own projects. It’s been difficult these past several years. We had some pretty serious fights, your father and I. All kinds of things, but we both knew the real issue was you. I think we did you a great wrong, Louise.”

  “Gee, never!” Lou muttered, trying to feel angrier than she did. Her resistance was wearing down.

  “Your father can’t admit that yet. One day…. But, and I know you have no reason to be pleased to hear this from me, I want to tell you anyway. It’s important to clear the air between us. I don’t think we could ever really be mother and daughter again. It’s too late for that. But we might be friends. I hope so, anyway—”

  “Ms. Meagher!”

  Lou jumped, startled by the interruption. She was still trying to work through the mess of feelings she had struggling inside her, a fishing-line snarl of emotion. Too much to digest. Not enough time. Never enough time. Which didn’t explain the silly tears she felt rolling down her face.

  “Ms. Meagher?”

  Lou recognized that other voice. Glancing around, sniffing away her tears, she saw Dog hiding in the grassy undergrowth under a stand of jacaranda trees, a few meters away. His white and brown head sticking out of the grass. She managed to suppress a squeal of relief and happiness. Truly, she had too much to deal with right now. Jen, pause the letter! Dog’s just turned up.

  Jen whooped, causing Lou to wince, pressing a finger to her ear. “Fantastic! That’s great! Oh, and your mother didn’t have a lot else to say. You know, the usual. She’s sorry, she loves you, yadda yadda.”

  If I survive the next half-hour, I’ll send her a note. Stand by. Lou was already out of the chair, crossing the clearing. Dog crawled out of hiding. He looked very embarrassed, as he crept towards her, tail between his legs, floppy ears flat against his head. He looked up at her, with his big dark eyes full of wet remorse and guilt. And then, seeing Lou properly, he stared, blinked, and stared again, his head tilted over a little. “What the…?”

  “Long story,” Lou said, awkwardly.

  At last, Dog got over his hesitation. “Ms. Meagher, I’m terribly, terribly sorry. I can’t begin to—” He looked away.

  She crouched, arms out, smiling at him. “I’ve never been so happy to see anybody in my whole wretched life, Dog. Now, get your sorry ass over here!”

  He glanced at her sideways, unsure, wary. She saw he was little more than skin and bone. “You’re not mad at me?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No, and frankly we don’t have a lot of bloody time. Now, hurry up. We’ve got bad guy problems again.”

  Dog said, getting up and moving to trot over, “I heard. I’ve been monitoring police traffic while I waited.”

  Watching him trot across the grass, Lou felt herself wanting to break down completely and cry her eyes out.

  Dog padded across, trying out a cautious wag of his white tail. He was about to leap into her waiting arms when another figure stepped out of the darkness, between the trees. Artificial starlight glimmered on something in the figure’s right hand.

  “Hello, Louise. Nice to see you again.”

  Lou saw Tom Meagher step into the clearing. Dog looked, too, and started growling, snarling, his hackles up.

  Tom was wearing black commando stealth gear which suppressed all of the sounds around him as he moved through the grass.

  He carried a slick assault weapon that Lou recognized only too well. The nanophage launcher was similar to the one she stole from him, and it was aimed at her.

  “Tom,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, and not succeeding. She swore under her breath. “What brings you here?” she asked, affecting a forced nonchalance, trying not to think of all the forces converging on her right now. The cop-hov sirens were getting altogether too loud; she could smell burned thruster-fuel on the breeze.

  He made an adjustment on the stock of the weapon. “Business, Lou. Just business. And maybe a little pleasure, too. First, though, I’d like that datacard of mine back, thank you.”

  Lou had to think a moment, then remembered the other thing she stole from Tom’s briefcase that night. “Oh, that!” she said. “Don’t you keep backups?” She shot Jen a message about it, remembering that her friend had told her she cracked the crypto, but Lou had been too busy to check the contents. Damn! This kind of inattention to detail could get a girl annihilated.

  Jen dumped the contents of the card into her conscious mind, and said, “He’s a bloody mercenary, for God’s sake! The card’s got all the files relating to his outfit’s operations, personnel, budgets, contacts, intel briefings, future plans and all that. Looks like he stole it; he shows up as just a minor drone.”

  Lou felt her head light up with sudden knowledge about spaceborne mercenary operations. She blinked a few times, trying to get her mind around it all. She said at last, “a mercenary, Tom? I thought you were a big-time writer.”

  He shrugged. “I was doing immersive research on mercenaries for a book project and found that I rather fancied the idea of living like one of the ‘dogs of war’ and fighting battles that nobody wants to know about. There seemed to be a kind of glamor to it. And talk about gambling and risk-taking! Its so hardcore.”

  “And one day,” she said, thinking back to married life with the very flaky Tom Meagher, “you decided you didn’t like it after all and you wanted to leave, only they wouldn’t let you, so you ran?”

  Tom grinned. “You know me so well.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I wish I didn’t,” she quipped.

  “Not happy to see your beloved hubby after all this time? I’m shocked.”

  “Tom,” she said, looking around, listening to the approaching hovs, “I really don’t have time for this right now.”

  “I think you do, Louise.”

  She saw Dog’s hackles bristling, and knew he would try to attack Tom if there was even the slightest hint of real danger. “Steady, Dog.”

  Tom stepped closer, keeping the gun levelled at her head. “The card, Louise.”

  She told him what he could do with the card.

  Another step.

  “Ms. Meagher…?” Dog held his position.

  She said to Tom, “You never had the nanovirus, did you?”

  He flashed a lethal smile. “Theatrical makeup and prosthetics.”

  Such a simple trick. She’d believed him. She’d let herself feel sorry for him, again… “I could spew!”

  “The card, Louis
e.”

  She took a careful step back, thinking about luring him into the open. “Fuck you, Tom. Fuck you!” It came out as a hoarse whisper, and she coughed badly.

  Jen interrupted. “I’d say you have about five minutes to wrap this up, Lou.”

  Lou glanced around, looking for a way out. Otaru, bless his strange heart, had not thought to provide her with a gun. Her eyes kept returning to Tom’s phage launcher. Her mind flashed images of the crazy woman’s unraveling, the way her body had boiled and evaporated right before Lou’s eyes.

  Dog stood by, keen to redeem himself, and be a good dog. She could hear him snarling, but hoped he wouldn’t do anything stupid. A message came back; Jen read it. “Dog says, ‘Tom’s going to kill you, Ms. Meagher! I can smell it on him.’”

  Lou tried to calm herself, and to buy some time. Maybe, she thought, when the cops show up, they could bag Tom. Crazed gunman stalking around with paramilitary weapons. These cops might actually care about something like that. It was her best hope.

  Tom looked bemused; he shifted his stance. The gun remained targeted on Lou. “Kestrel was supposed to get annihilated. That Bastard thing was going to be my ticket out of the whole rat-race.” Lou thought he sounded petulant that his great plan had been ruined, like the universe itself was plotting against him. She remembered this kind of thinking from when they were married, and he’d blame everybody and everything else for his failure to sell his damned books — except himself. Merely suggesting that he might need to write better books was a good way to get a black eye.

  Lou figured out the rest. “You were gonna fake your death, make it look like you died in the impact, and then pop up later somewhere, new face, new look, new ID?”

  “I celebrated the cleverness of this fine plan with one of my associates in your bed.” Lou heard the bitter undertone in his smug self-satisfaction, the sense that he was delighted to have left his mark.

  She remembered the storm of fury she’d felt that day and she realized that she could never escape Tom. He would always find a way to weasel his way back into her life.

  She took a step towards him, towards the gun. “Fuck off, Tom.” Her voice was quiet, but diamond-hard. She took another step.

  Dog, at her side, quivering with suppressed tension, said, “Ms. Meagher…”

  “Stay back, Dog. This is something I should have done when I had the chance.”

  “Ms. Meagher? He’s not worth it!”

  Tom kept the gun pointed at her head. “No need for such unpleasantness, Louise. Just give me the card.”

  “Why should I help you with anything?” Another step.

  He smiled. A disarming grin which he’d always used as a weapon. “This is just business, Louise. You give me the card, I sell my true confession about life in the twilight world of the mercenary—”

  “And use the proceeds to take care of your current gambling debts?”

  “I think you might know me a little too well…” He looked, momentarily at least, thoughtful.

  Lou took another step. The muzzle of the phage launcher rested against her forehead. She said, whispering, “You didn’t come all this way just to get your card back, now did you?”

  “Well,” he said softly, adjusting his grip on the gun, “It’s like this. At first I just wanted to find you. Get you for what you did to me. You really didn’t think you’d get away with it, did you, Louise? After all, it was always your fault nothing ever worked out for me. You held me back with all your nagging and whining and complaining.”

  “My fault? My fault?” She wanted to spit in his face.

  “Yes,” he said, looking surprised that she didn’t understand. “Your fault.”

  Lou couldn’t speak.

  “And then, on top of everything else that you’d done to me, you stole my card. My ticket out, Louise.”

  Dog growled, deep and threatening.

  Tom glanced at Dog. And Lou could see that he hated Dog just as Dog hated him. Tom said, “Muzzle your dog…”

  “Ms. Meagher…?”

  “Not now,” she managed, coughing. To Tom she said, “If you want to kill me, just kill me. Get on with it or piss off.”

  He worked his jaw, clearly thinking about it, but at the same time wanting to draw out the moment and torture her as long as he could. “The card.”

  Lou stared. He really wanted the stupid card. She pulled it from her jacket pocket and flung it at him. “There’s your card!”

  He left it lying in the grass. Lou noticed that he didn’t even look at it. She began to see the hidden design in recent events. “What have you done, Tom?” she gasped.

  “Ah, well,” he said, “I did start out only wanting to get my card back, but then I heard about this wealthy industrialist who wanted to eliminate a certain individual who matched your description!” He beamed at her. “It was a delightful confluence of business and pleasure. So, here we are, Louise.”

  Stunned, Lou remembered the look on Tourignon’s face as she left, saying “adieu”. So serious.

  “No wonder,” she said to herself, “he didn’t mind telling me all about his plans.”

  “Ah, Louise. Tourignon was right about you. You’re just not very good at this private investigator gig.” He giggled.

  Dog leapt for him, shouting through his synth box, “You bastard!”

  Tom dipped the gun and shot Dog.

  The nanophage shell hit and splashed Dog across his chest. The goo went right to work. Dog curled up in mid-air, wide-eyed, yelping, in agony.

  Lou’s scream tore at the night. “Dog!” She watched him fall.

  Dog hit the ground, dissolving. There was a fetid stench. Lou vomited, howling through shock and tears. The dog’s synth box hissed and he managed to say, “Ms. Mea—” before the box failed, emitting a burst of hollow static.

  Lou took a step towards Dog’s melting remains, tears streaming, voice silently screeching. This is not happening! Not after all we’ve been through!

  She wanted to rip Tom apart. Never had she felt fury like this. Such rage. She glared at Tom through tear-blurred eyes, advancing on him. She was going to kill the bastard.

  Tom, unconcerned, watched Dog unravel into the grass. He smirked.

  Lou managed to say, “Why…?”

  He said, calmly and as if speaking to a small child, “Why, to hurt you, of course.”

  That did it. Lou blasted him with every curse, every obscenity she could think of, until she was reduced to incoherent furious bellowing that scoured her throat, making her cough. She took one more step, not knowing what she was doing, but doing it anyway.

  All the while, the stink of Dog’s guts hung in the air between them. There was a vile fizzing sound.

  He brought up the gun, aiming along the sights at her head. “Now I’ll teach you a lesson for running from your husband!” His finger closed on the trigger.

  The light, when it came, began as a star overhead, a point of magisterial brightness against the darkness, its glare blotting out the pale fake stars of the display tiles above. This starlight cast shadows. Tom glanced up, murder forgotten for a moment; Lou looked up, too.

  The star grew, taking its time. As it got bigger, Lou noticed a burning, tingling feeling spread all over her body. She saw Tom frowning, touching his face, his hands.

  Their eyes met. Their hostility was suspended under the glare of mystery.

  While the star grew, forming a disk, a sphere, its temperature remained cool, even when it was far bigger than Kestrel’s star as seen from the planet surface. The strange feelings persisted. Lou already felt like shredded crap; she wasn’t worried.

  She heard cop-hov sirens; dozens, scores of them, getting closer.

  The star, now an immensity of light, a sphere of smooth white fire, stopped growing. It paused a moment. Th
e curving sea glittered with the star’s reflected light. Tom’s gun, hanging by his side, shone, too.

  Lou thought, not for the first time, Here it comes!

  The star disappeared. Or rather, it dwindled back down to a brilliant point of light, shrinking too fast to watch.

  Then it was gone.

  That storm of agony left Lou feeling sick. Tom looked like he felt the same.

  Dog was gone, too, she noticed. Nothing left.

  A terrible scream of anguish burst in their heads. Lou doubled over, holding her ears, as if to block out this wail, but it was already inside, shaking her bones. Tom had fallen to his knees, eyes squeezed shut, hands crushing his ears. His mouth made strange shapes as it tried to articulate pain of this magnitude.

  When Lou thought she could stand it no more, when she thought listening for one more second would kill her, she fell to her knees, hunched over. Her whole body seemed attuned somehow; her teeth resonated with the scream.

  The scream stopped.

  A cold wind blew in Lou’s face. She opened her eyes and saw Kid standing before her. The Kid from her dream, adolescent, strong, with colorless eyes and windblown blond hair. He was naked, but shone with a hidden glamor.

  And, from the look on his face, he was filled with seraphic grief.

  Lou chose to stay on her knees; she watched Tom’s face as it reflected his attempts to understand what was happening. He was baffled and frightened. Lou thought he was not nearly frightened enough. Tom said to her, “You know anything about this?” She kept quiet, and watched. The boy was glorious and tall. No longer the dying weakling she had seen in Dog’s memory, this boy was a young king about to claim his throne, bursting with strength and awesome power.

  In her head she heard Kid’s voice, though she knew Kid was addressing Tom. Kid said, his voice that of a child, torn with anguish, Why did you kill Dog? He was advancing on Tom, his eerie eyes unblinking, full of implacable wrath.

  Tom began to understand. He snapped up the phage gun, hit the trigger. A stream of phage shells shot from the weapon, the sound of their launch swallowed in the silence. The rounds crossed the dwindling distance, and disappeared on arrival; they never struck the boy. Tom, starting to panic, fired another volley and again the rounds vanished.