Beyond Those Distant Stars

by John B. Rosenman

  “Colonel...” Major Chong began.

  “Regent-Protector,” Powers said, his voice sounding different than she'd ever heard it, “I want you to drop your gun and tell these soldiers to withdraw.”

  Chong sneered. “We'll do no such—”

  “Shut up, Major.” Stella saw Powers press the barrel so tightly against Malek's temple that he winced in pain. “Regent-Protector Malek, if you don't comply with my wishes, I believe I will blow your brains out. I sincerely think this is true, ser. And ser, though I respect your high office, it is also my conviction that you are a turd-filled son of a bitch who will soon be worm meat if you don't relay my request to our comrades.”

  Malek's lips twitched and the gun clattered to the floor. “M-Move ‘em out, Chong,” he croaked.

  Stella watched them withdraw. Chong shook so hard he looked like he was having a stroke.

  As the soldiers pulled back to where they'd been before, they themselves moved behind the columns. When they were concealed, Powers turned to Stella, his hand gripping Malek. “What do we do now, Commander? Even with him, they won't let us leave.”

  Stella rubbed her arms, still a little numb from the suit, and looked at Jason. He was gazing at all the dead bodies, grief in his eyes. There was Carol near one of the columns, and what remained of Gage, who had defended her with her own body. A little beyond her, Lovejoy's ruined face gazed blindly up at nothing.

  Farther out, surrounded by soldiers he had taken with him, Thunderheart lay on his back with outstretched arms. He had died nobly, upholding his creed, and he had spent his very last breath in the Emperor's service. Was there any better way for a soldier to die?

  But, Stella thought, he had only begun to grow and explore, discover who he was, his ultimate potential.

  She fought back a tear. There was no time for such thoughts.

  “We have to reach the ship,” she said.

  Malek sneered. “They'll kill you first. The best thing you can do now is surrender.”

  George seized Malek's collar in one hand. The other pulled Malek's goatee so hard that he screamed. “Let me make this plain, you puffed-up bastard. If we die, you go too. That's a promise you can count on.”

  Malek's complexion went chalky, and he closed his mouth.

  Jason clicked his tongue. “He's right, though. It must be sixty, sixty-five meters to the Spaceranger's hatch. Maybe they won't charge us, but will they let us leave with him?”

  “There are also guards on board,” Lee said from the next column. “Even if some of us make it, we'll have them to worry about.”

  “So you're saying we're at an impasse?” Stella said. “They'll starve us out?”

  “Or get us when we're sleeping,” Lee replied. He looked up. “Maybe they'll pick us off from another level.”

  George poked Malek hard. “Stella, he's our ace in the hole. But if we play him, we lose him. Once he's dead, they'll come down our throats.”

  At the word ‘dead,’ Malek paled. Stella turned and moved near the edge of the column. “Major Chong,” she called, “we're taking Malek on board the Spaceranger.”

  “You will be fired upon if you do!” Chong called back.

  She frowned. “Even if the Regent-Protector's with us? You'll kill him too?”

  A long pause. “The first person who shows their face anywhere will be cut down,” Chong answered. “That means anyone!”

  Stella turned back. “Hear that, Regent-Protector? He's willing to sacrifice you like a hog. Does that make him a traitor too?”

  Malek hyperventilated, his skin pasty-colored and wet. “Major C-Chong,” he quavered, “I order you to let us go!”

  No answer. They waited.

  “Major Chong!” Malek delivered the order again, his voice cracking.

  Still no answer. “Aw, that's a shame, Regent-Protector,” Stella sympathized. “But you know that disobedience is a definite problem in the ranks these days.” She gazed at the hatch door behind the Spaceranger's bow and the soldier who lay in it. If one of the guards on the ship pushed him out and closed it, they were finished.

  “You know,” she said, “we don't all have to reach the ship. Just one of us. One who knows how the weapons work.”

  George's eyes widened. “The bow plasma and laser weapons!”

  “Especially the plasma, which has broader effects at close range. Whatever they choose, there's enough power there to cremate Chong and gut this complex.”

  Lee pounded the next column with such excitement he hurt his hand. He clutched it and did a quick jig of pain. “I get it, ser! One of us blows the enemy kaplooey and we all slip aboard in the confusion!”

  Enemy. Kaplooey. For a heartbeat, the whole universe tipped sideways and went insane. Jason touched her, and she struggled back.

  “Stella,” he said, “it would take a very fast runner.” He measured the distance with his eyes. “Even then, there's not a man alive who'd stand a chance. He'd be cut down before he got halfway.”

  “What do you mean, ‘he'?” she said.

  Jason and George both sucked in their breath. “You can't go,” Jason said. “We need you!”

  “He's right,” Colonel Powers said. “If what you say is true, Commander, the only chance we have to win this war is if you get to your destination. The rest of us are expendable. Besides, the one who goes will still have to deal with the soldiers on board to get to the weapons station.”

  Lee broke in again. “Ser, we've got a galactic-class runner here. Nick Flynn. And he's a gunnery specialist.”

  Nick stepped forward. “Let me go, ser.” He patted a pocket. “I've got a laser.”

  “Sorry, I can't let you do it.”

  “Remember last time, ser?” Nick said. “You wouldn't let me rush the Scaleys but went yourself. Things are different now. You're the one person we can't lose.”

  Stella heard a chorus of agreement but held firm. He was so young, and enough had died.

  “Nick makes sense,” Lee said. “Ser, you can't risk it yourself. You're irreplaceable.”

  Stella gazed at Nick, winner of the diamond novaburst at the Olympiad. But this was no game. Turning, she glanced at Malek's lean, hard face, knowing that he wouldn't think twice about sending a man to his death.

  She swung back to Nick. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, ser.” Nick removed his shoes and handed something on a chain to Brett. His code tags. Nick wanted Brett to give them to someone-perhaps his parents, or a girl.

  Along the line, Stella's crew passed the word and readied their weapons. Powers gave her one of his pistols.

  Nick assumed a sprinter's crouch. “I'll see you soon, ser.”

  “Godspeed,” she said softly.

  Then he was off and they all leapt out from behind the columns, firing not so much to hit anyone as to distract them with an abundance of targets. As her finger pumped the trigger, she tracked Nick with her peripheral vision, seeing him streak forward and his body rise as he settled into a full stride. He had run ten meters, fifteen...

  Shots came, a solid, sustained blast. Nick raced on.

  Then his chest and stomach heaved like he was crossing a finish line and his arms flew up as if in celebration. She stopped firing and turned. Nick's momentum carried him on a few steps, but he soon pitched forward on his face.

  Jason had been right. Nick had made less than twenty-five meters.

  They hid behind the columns again. Two more members of her crew had been shot and killed in the effort.

  She handed Powers’ gun back and did a few quick deep knee bends, then rolled her neck from side to side to loosen it. “Colonel Powers,” she said, “when I blast Chong's men, I want you all to run for the ship. Be sure to bring Malek too. He might prove useful later.”

  “No, Stella,” Jason said. “You can't ... you'll be killed!”

  “You said it yourself,” she said. “We need a fast runner, and without making too fine a point of it, there's no one in the Empire who can match me.” She shook of
f George as he tried to restrain her, and then felt Powers touch her shoulder. “We'll cover for you,” he said, raising his hand to pass the command on to others.

  Stella turned. Jason was staring at her in desperation, his wounded shoulder still bleeding. She put her arms around him and pressed her lips hard against his own, wanting to take him into her, wrap her body and soul around him. Then, because she couldn't make it last forever, she pulled back from his tight embrace and dipped her finger in his blood, painting her forehead and cheeks in quick swipes.

  “Stella...”

  “Goodbye, Jason,” she said. “I take you with me.”

  Turning, she fixed her eyes on the hatch and was off.

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  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  As Stella started running, it seemed to her that someone was always either pointing a gun in her face or making her run for her life. She saw Sloan in her cabin, telling her with a laser in his hand there'd been a change in command ... Lovejoy and Malek looking at her over their gun barrels. Now here she was, dashing toward the hatch just as she had charged the Scaleys on the enemy ship, endlessly determined to make long odds longer by placing herself in impossible situations.

  Her boots pounded the floor and she cursed herself for not removing them and taking a gun instead. But she reached Nick and passed him, driving herself on with every fiber of her being. No full-body servos in her armor this time. She'd have to do this on her own, with only her enhanced abilities and no duroplast shielding.

  She had passed halfway! Ahead, the hatch loomed.

  Shots sounded. Something nipped her sleeve, whined off the hatch door. Just twenty meters left.

  A bullet took her in the shoulder, two others in the leg. She lurched and swerved onward as hundreds of others struck and cracked around her. Another bullet slammed into her back, almost driving her from her feet. She forced herself on. Please! Just ten meters ... five...

  Just as she reached the hatch, yet another bullet tore into her side. She fell to her knees, reaching up for the door. She was finished. She couldn't make it.

  Then she thought of the All-Mother, and hate surged through her like an electric charge. She rose, plunged inside, and started up the narrow corridor to the bow.

  And stopped.

  A half-dozen guards stood three meters before her with drawn weapons, obviously determined to prevent her from reaching the bow.

  She screamed and charged.

  Shots went off but her scream startled them just enough to let her cover the distance without taking another hit. Then she was among them, striking to kill. She pulverized faces, smashed chests, even rammed two heads together. In close quarters, no one could shoot, but she felt a gun butt bludgeon her skull from behind. She sagged toward unconsciousness but fought it off, turned, and cut her attacker down with a vicious punch that knocked out half his teeth.

  When they were down, she leaned against the wall and looked at them. All dead or unconscious. She shoved herself from the wall and started toward the bridge.

  Before her stood one last man, dressed like the others in the olive green uniform of an Imperial guard. He was young and looked nervous, but he held a pistol pointed right at her face.

  And there was no chance-no chance at all-that she could beat him.

  She tucked her head in and snarled. “Get the freakin’ hell out of my way!”

  The guard screamed and bolted past her, his gun clattering to the floor. She watched him fall once in his haste and stagger up, casting a frantic glance back over his shoulder before running on.

  Stella tottered toward the bridge.

  She must have blacked out for a moment, because she came to draped over the weapons control panel on the command console. Before her, above five vid displays, floated overlapping views of the docking area in mid-range magnification. When had she activated them?

  Fighting dizziness, she zoomed in on Chong. He'd set up a barrier of refractory combat bunkers, and was talking to a subordinate behind them. What if he decided to rush her crew because she'd gained access to the ship?

  That was exactly what he was going to do. She saw him rise with a comlink held to his mouth and glance to left and right as his soldiers climbed to their feet. Protected by duroplast shields, they moved forward with their rifles.

  Think again, Chongee. She centered the target grid on his chest and placed her fingers over lit buttons marked PLASMA-ON.

  The soldiers kept marching, nearly two hundred against barely a dozen. Talk about overkill. Fortunately, even with their shields, her advantage over the enemy was greater than theirs over her remaining crew.

  Enemy. There was that word again. She had to remember that they weren't the enemy. It was the All-Mother who had done this, the All-Mother who had hurt and divided them. The figures now approaching her crew were merely taking orders.

  From Chong.

  Steeling herself, she pressed the buttons with one hand and worked the target grid with the other.

  Two burning white rods of ionized gas speared Chong and a dozen others in mid-stride. Stella swung the beams from side to side, decimating his forces before they got halfway to her crew.

  Powers and the others ran toward her. She raised the plasma jets to the far wall of the docking area and strafed it from left to right. Unlike Gage, Stella had no compunctions about risking decompression, even if it involved destroying an entire sector and venting it into space. All the people on the base she had ever cared about were either dead or about to board.

  Not so. What about Tessa and her son? The Emperor?

  She had no choice. It was imperative she continue. If she caused enough damage, they might not be able to launch a pursuit ship.

  Gentle hands took her shoulders and assisted her to the battle harness. When had she called that up? She must have blacked out again while holding the buttons down. Jason lowered the affixed helmet over her head and grimaced in pain, then slipped into his own seat where he repeated the process. The tripod structure beneath his seat shot left, then right in the cogged floor apparatus as he pressed buttons and adjusted dials. She caught bits of exchange between him and Lee, seated behind her.

  “Retros up.”

  “Check.”

  “Shields on.”

  “Check.”

  “All compartments sealed.”

  “Check.”

  She struggled to remember what such things meant. Turning her head, she saw Powers give her a concerned smile. And Brett was watching her too. Where were Myles and Carol?

  A harsh curse sounded. George slammed Malek down into a seat and rudely strapped him in. A hypospray rose in his hand. He rolled up the arm of Malek's luxurious robe and unceremoniously injected him. “That should keep you quiet,” he said, heading toward his own seat.

  She glanced over at Jason, who seemed to have injured his shoulder. How had he done that? And what was it she wanted to tell him? She knew it was important.

  “Jason,” she said.

  He flicked a switch. Turned. “Yes, Commander.”

  She opened her mouth. “When we launch, blast the docking bays to hell and back. I don't want anyone to follow us.”

  He grinned. “Aye, aye, ser.”

  Seconds later, or minutes, a tremendous hand seemed to press her down in her seat. She blinked at the bodies strewn in the base's docking area, seeing them dwindle as the ship rose into space. As they left, plasma jets and laser beams, all the ship's available artillery, scorched and crisscrossed the base's structure.

  The last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness was seeing Loran Base from five hundred kilometers out, its outer shell breached and broken in at least a dozen places.

  * * * *

  When she awoke, George was tending to her head. She groaned, her eyes asking ten questions at once.

  “Welcome back, Stella,” he said. “We've been out an hour and there's no pursuit. The ship's secure. All told, we've got seventeen crew on board, i
ncluding Colonel Powers. He salted Malek away in the brig and got two guards to cooperate. We had to shoot some others, though, and took four casualties ourselves.”

  She rolled her head on the pillow and spotted Jason. He sat all the way across the room on a gurney and was being attended by Dr. Wynn. As she watched, Dr. Wynn almost reverently wrapped Jason's arm in gauze. He was naked to the waist.

  Well, that answered her next question. She was in the infirmary.

  “I've removed the bullets and used nine kinds of healant,” George said, “but you're banged up pretty bad. Ideally, you could use a new body.”

  Stella managed a small smile. “Next time I'm near a state-of-the-art cyber lab, I'll make an appointment.”

  “It's your head I'm worried about,” George said, ignoring her irony. “Despite your frills, you've still got a standard issue brain, and it's just withstood a major league concussion. You need to take it easy for a few days.”

  “As you would say, ‘fat chance.'” She squeezed her eyes shut in sudden pain. “Ooooh! I've simply got to find a new form of employment.”

  “Well, I'll say one thing. Traveling with you is never dull.”

  “No?” Stella scanned his body. “Why is it that every time we go to the wars, I get my ass shot off and you don't even get your hair creased? I could have sworn when Powers’ soldiers came at us that your ticket was going to get punched.”

  “Maybe I've got nine lives.” A sudden thought erased the smile that had formed on his face.

  She touched his hand. “I'm sorry about Carol.”

  He looked away. “Before she died, she said she loved me.”

  Stella was silent.

  “Maybe if things had been different, if I hadn't met you, she and I...” He shrugged and popped a mint into his mouth. “To quote an old proverb, ‘If wishes were horses, beggars might ride.'”

  “You're no beggar, George.”

  “No, I'm not,” George said. “As a matter of fact, for a long time I thought I was something infinitely worse.”

  “How could you be?” She squeezed his hand. “You've got to be about the finest person I know.”

  “Aw, I bet you say that to every guy who pulls bullets out of your hide.” The attempted joke fell flat. “Remember your asking me why I quit being a soldier? It had to do with some incidents on Baxter.”