by James Hanlon
Own two hands. His prosthetic twitched involuntarily.
The station was all white metal and soft curves—a relic from before the rebellion designed and built by the planet’s first settlers. Strump seemed to be content to bury his nose in watching news videos on his pad while the girl sat in the back, every once in a while peering over Silver’s shoulder at the view.
Before they left the dock Silver had let Wanderlust know they were on the way back so the crew could prepare for immediate departure. Although with the hold on traffic Silver wasn’t sure how they were going to launch from the station.
With any luck, the Captain would have taken care of that snag in the plan already; securing the launch was his job, and he seemed to have connections with nearly every officer of note in every port from the Core to the edge planets. Silver was sure the Captain was getting an earful from Tower back on Wanderlust.
That was the reason he requested departure before they left in the shuttle, broadcasting where they were headed—Tower would contact Wanderlust to find out what was happening, and the Captain could sort things out by going over Tower’s head to a station officer. There was no traffic anyway, clear lanes all the way to the launching platform just up ahead. The blue navigational thread led to an outline of Wanderlust at the base of a launch pod.
As they neared the platform, two sleek fighter drones deployed from some hidden perch and streaked toward them.
“Bill,” Strump said. “Bill, what’s that.”
“What’s what?” Bee said from the back, leaning forward for a better view.
Gim took a glance and piped up, “Two Mark VI Interloper class defense drones.”
Silver slowed their approach and flicked on the comms, having left them off to prevent Tower from badgering him all the way to the platform. Apparently he didn’t like that. “Tower, Wanderlust transport shuttle approaching launching platform, please advise.”
The drones maintained course. Silence from Tower.
“They’re still coming, Bill,” Strump said. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
“Shuttle Wanderlust, please continue current approach to complete docking with host ship at Pod Fourteen,” Tower drawled, and Silver thought he could detect a faint note of displeasure in the AI’s voice, perhaps grudging acceptance that they had broken the rules and gotten away with it. “Emergency drones deployed for approach assistance.”
The drones finally slowed, then spun a sharp one-eighty and began flashing their rear emergency lights. Silver followed them in, swooping down along the rows of gargantuan launching pods. The platform was devoid of queued ships, but almost every pod was filled; they must have been making the final launches before the station shifted its orbit.
Several launched as they passed by, the interior of the massive hollow pods priming with a green glow and then pulsing brilliantly from the base, pushing the ships forward to incredible speeds as the pod shot them off into the void.
Pod Fourteen loomed ahead, Wanderlust already loaded and ready to launch. The two drones broke off and returned to their previous positions, leaving Silver to slowly nestle the shuttle into Wanderlust’s open docking bay. Home sweet home.
***
Inside the roaring-loud confines of Tuggernaut #7, the Beard watched in horror as the gravity generators' temperature dials crept into the red. The gigantic tethering node on the back of the ship blasted a continuous thrumming rope of mint-green energy into a stable portion of the comet, altering its trajectory by a fraction of a degree at a time.
The countdown read one minute.
Particles of rock, ice, and dust constantly pinged off the ship's new paint job, and Tuggernaut's bright red skin was scored with tiny pockmarks and scars. The ship shuddered as one of the grav generators hiccupped, throwing it off balance.
The Beard sprang into action, his fingers flinging desperate commands into the ship’s computer; he vented heat from the near-molten generators, spewing blackened cooling gel into space, and rerouted coolant from the engines to replace it.
The green rope of energy momentarily flickered and faded, but crackled back to life when the generator came online. Tuggernaut corrected its position as though nothing had happened, and the familiar steady rumbling of the generators resumed.
“Close one, bud,” breathed Tattoos over his suit's comms.
The Beard shrugged. “Matter of time.”
“C'mon man, we ain't dead yet. You got this.”
Another weak lift of the shoulders. As if in response, a violent quaking began to jar them in their seats. The temperature gauges soared to critical levels.
The reality of the situation sunk in when Tattoos saw his more experienced partner’s helpless indifference, and he sat back heavy in his seat.
“Never thought I was gonna die in this thing,” he said. “My first big boost.”
“First and last. Sorry, bud. I tried, but—”
“Nah, man,” Tattoos said, waving away the apology. “Just always figured I'd end up getting vented back on Optima or shanked on some prison cube or something, y'know?”
Tattoos pulled a flask from a pouch on his suit and waggled it at his partner. The Beard cracked a grin, and they both unclasped their helmets and tossed them behind the seats.
The ink-stenciled young man unscrewed the cap and offered the Beard the first drink, who accepted with a grateful bow of his head. He swirled the liquid inside the thin flask and smelled the sweet sharp bite of lotus.
The countdown read thirty seconds.
The faint jade glow of the gravity tether flashed bright for a moment, sputtered, then finally surged with power as one of the generators overloaded. The tether’s snaking stream flooded with excess energy, yanked hard on the comet, overpowered the ship’s brakes, and dragged the whole craft savagely into Orpheus. Tuggernaut #7 rocketed into the comet with stunning speed and smashed against the unflinching mountainous terrain, crushed instantly. A shower of ejecta exploded from the impact site—chunks of shiny red steel sparkled when the sunlight caught them.
***
As Orpheus twisted and spun along its new trajectory its ancient bones shifted into unfamiliar new positions. Onward the comet rolled through space toward the sun, gaining heat, spewing more gas and debris as it went.
Craggy black peaks which had stood for millennia fractured from the pent up primordial fury of geysers beneath, ejecting great chunks of packed dust and ice into the comet’s misty coma. Behind Orpheus stretched two tails thousands of miles long, one a radiant cloak of gaseous particles billowing in the stellar wind, the other a sweeping trail of broken ice and rock.
Its unwelcome cargo detached their proboscis-like tethers from its skin and vanished within moments into the empty blackness behind, the whole swarm moving as one. The parasites had introduced an element of chaos to its eternal circuit, and instead of following its previous well-traveled path it careened along a tighter orbit toward the distant star Lux.
The blue planet Surface, once a far-off speck, grew in size and brightness with each moment as the rogue comet rushed on. Faster, faster Orpheus plunged to the center of the system, an unchained force of nature barreling along nearly perpendicular to the neat circular orbit of Surface. Orpheus was a minefield on the loose.
Chapter 10: Gravity
“What will it feel like?” Bee was still strapped into her seat in the shuttle behind Bill Silver as they awaited their turn to launch.
“Nothing. You won’t feel it,” Bill said.
“But the ships I saw were going so fast. How does that work?”
An annoyed glance from Bill. “You really need me to explain right now?”
Bee sat back and rolled her eyes. “Fine. No.”
In the copilot’s chair, Governor Strump flicked between different news feeds on his pad. The faint chattering of different voices was indistinguishable, but Bee could hear excitement, fear, and anxiousness. Strump seemed pretty upset about the comet. Paranoid even. He finally settled on Cap City’s favorite
anchor, Chep Stanley.
Bill gave a relenting sigh and turned to look at Bee. “Inside the ship we don’t feel any gravitational force except whatever is generated by our artificial gravity. Since there are layers of nullsteel wrapped around the entire ship, any external gravitational forces can’t reach the interior—they’re nullified, hence the name.”
“Oh. So why do we have to keep sitting in the shuttle then?”
“It’s just—protocol,” Bill said. “Just wait for two seconds.”
She was about to ask how the launch pods worked when Tower’s voice came in deep, calm, and clear over the speakers.
“Privateer frigate Wanderlust, you are cleared for launch. Departure in fifteen seconds.”
Governor Strump turned up the volume on his video. Chep Stanley still. Bee leaned forward to see as best she could. Chep was video interviewing a navy-suited Planetary Defense officer, whose stern visage appeared opposite the peppy anchor.
“So please tell us, Admiral Perry, exactly what it is you think we’re dealing with here,” Chep said. “We’ve all feared the pirates would come in force someday. Do you think that’s what is happening right now?”
“Well, this ‘Starhawk’ could be telling the truth—or he could be bluffing. It could be some kind of hoax. For all we know the images we’ve seen could just be more debris from the comet. They could have easily been doctored to give the appearance of a fleet in formation.”
“The evidence seems quite convincing to a lot of experts.”
“Well, some experts are convinced more easily than others.” The Admiral folded his arms across his chest. “We’re unable to give confirmation either way while shielding our instruments from the comet. Even if he is telling the truth, I don’t trust a single word he says. Pirates are scum.”
Chep smiled with the polite grace of a seasoned anchor. “Why don’t we just show our viewers a short clip for context so there’s no confusion. Let’s play that clip.”
“Ten seconds to launch,” droned Tower, and began to count down. “Nine, eight….”
Her stomach started to feel like it wasn’t sure which way was up again, and she leaned her head back against the cool metal wall. Blood pounded in her ears, drowning out the interview. This was it.
For as long as she could remember this was the plan—just get out there, doesn’t matter how. But then everything happened so fast, just all of a sudden. What if she wasn’t ready? What if she should have stayed longer?
The fear that she had gone soft during her time at the hotel worried her, and she momentarily lamented all the days she had spent planted in front of a computer screen when she should have been working on her sparring or something. What if she was going all the way out there just to wind up getting herself killed?
She never did sign up for those marksmanship courses.
And she never said goodbye to Hargrove.
“Five seconds to launch,” Tower said.
She heard a gruff voice from the video clip saying, “…fine citizens of the Core have nothing to fear…”
“Close your eyes if you think you’re going to puke again,” Bill said. “I’d prefer to avoid that.”
Bee shut her eyes. Second thoughts wouldn’t help her now. She was committed. So why did this little voice in the back of her head keep telling her—
Find him.
Her eyes snapped open at Mother’s words. She’d been so quiet recently.
Find him find him find him Mother chanted.
“…just here to collect our man Jensen Lee, and then we’ll leave,” the man in the clip said.
The video. That voice. Bee strained against the straps holding her in place, trying to get a better view over Strump’s shoulder. Someone was making some kind of speech on the bridge of a starship.
The shot snapped in close and she saw it—the face. The black hair, the piercing blue eyes. The corners of his lips tugged into a coyote’s smile as he spoke. A predator’s smile.
FIND HIM KILL HIM FIND HIM KILL HIM
It was the face she’d been chasing all her life.
“We’re headed for Surface,” Starhawk said. “I hope you’re willing to listen to reason and give us Jensen Lee. He’s just a lost wandering dog, and we want to take him home. Just let him on up through your nice gate and send him over in a shuttle so we can get on our way.”
KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM
“…two, one, launch,” finished Tower, and Bee screamed with horrified futility as she was hurled into space aboard Wanderlust.
***
Starhawk stood on the bridge of his flagship, Deep Fog, watching a magnified view of Orpheus as it tumbled toward Surface. They would make their approach in the wake of its passage to maximize their window of opportunity. The planet’s defenses would only be in disarray for a brief time before the comet’s chaotic debris field settled and everything was repositioned.
As soon as the comet was in play, his forces would descend upon the dark side of the planet, the defenseless side. Clusters of bright lights marked the sites of large cities. Everything in orbit worth worrying about was on the sunward side of the planet, protected from the comet as much as possible. His fleet could never stand a full barrage from the planet’s deadly orbital cannons, but if he was careful about where he gathered his forces, he could take a few hits.
He’d already released his video imploring the good people of Surface to simply listen to reason and give up one man to save thousands. All he needed to do was wait for them to agree to his terms, pick up Jensen Lee, and escape with the map. When it came down to it, his own ship was the only one required for his mission.
Everything else was a necessary ruse—he was doubtful that an assault against the orbital station would succeed, even with his fleet at full strength. Maybe if they’d been able to swing Orpheus in closer like the true wrecking ball it was supposed to be. Maybe.
But as the plan unfolded, Starhawk felt the ground crumbling beneath his feet. He’d barely been able to convince the crew to even make the journey. Every other raid they’d made into the Core ended with blood and vacuum. But this time he had the element of surprise—and even better, the element of disruption. The entire planetary defense system was currently in complete shambles.
It was a chance, that’s all it was. One opportunity to land a blow square on the jaw of those sneering do-gooders in the Core. Orpheus was his opening to upset the order in their otherwise placid existence. It was something to strike fear into them, right where they thought they were safe.
Starhawk imagined them trembling in their little glass city on Surface. It was he that threw the stone, he who brought the fear.
The comet barely missed Surface in astronomical terms—just under fifteen thousand miles. Orpheus passed ahead of the planet and sailed by on its new orbit. As the gases and vapor from its tail swept toward Surface they swirled into ethereal curtains that clouded the blue planet. Then the debris trail hit, and streaks of burning ice raked across the atmosphere.
It was time to release the hounds.
“Two-Gut, move into position,” Starhawk said on their private channel.
“…Heard, boss,” came the reluctant, grating reply from Captain Two-Gut Gruce.
Captain Gruce was in command of Red Shade, one of the fleet’s three total spacecraft carriers. He would take the carrier alone and move to intercept the orbital station head on. The second carrier, Bleachbone, and ten of the fleet’s twenty warships were already circling around behind the station while Red Shade provided a distraction for their pincer attack.
Gruce would make an easy target.
He was one of the holdouts who resented Starhawk’s rise to power. He was old and fat and slow and didn’t want to make an attack on the Core. It had been years since he last captained a ship, and after half a decade of sloth and swilling wine Gruce was unprepared in the most disastrous sense of the word. But Starhawk needed his men—and found him easily persuaded to take command of Red Shade, enticed by the
scent of power and promised wealth.
Of course, that was before he filled in old Two-Gut on his role in the assault. But by then the greedy fool was committed, couldn’t back down without being branded a coward. He put up some protest about being the tip of the spear, but Starhawk’s word was law. Gruce would do it under orders—and if not Starhawk could have a couple of loyal grubs from Red Shade put him down. Half of them were looking to slide a blade between his ribs anyway.
Starhawk’s warship Deep Fog, the final carrier Polyphemus, and the remaining ten warships would remain in the safety of the planet’s dark side. Their presence would put half the planet’s cities under threat of bombardment, giving them some bargaining power. All he wanted was Jensen Lee and the damn map. Surely they wouldn’t hold out long given such terms.
“Zeeda, some more wine,” he said, and held out the empty mug for his number two.
***
“Send me back! I’ll kill him! Send me back!”
“Just hold her down—”
“She kicked me in the ribs!”
“Then hold her legs! Just keep her still for a—”
Silver howled with pain when Bee lunged forward in the seat’s harness and chomped down on his right wrist while he was preparing a sedative. He grabbed the device with his prosthetic and with deft precision pressed it against the side of the enraged girl’s neck. Her jaws went slack on his wrist as the drug took hold. She slumped into a deep sleep.
“What the hell just happened to her?” Governor Strump shook his head in disbelief. “She was fine a minute ago.”
“Beats me. Girl’s crazy.”
“Who is she, even?”
“She worked at the hotel where Slack Dog got killed,” Silver said.
“And what’s she doing here?”
“Just help me get her out of here.”
