The Worst of All Possible Worlds

by Alex White

  “You know I don’t play games, Weathers. My word is gold-bonded,” said Cordell, tapping a button. “I’m transmitting our files to you now. They include the coords for Origin. I want them reported to Compass as-is.”

  Cedric pulled a projection over, and it beeped upon receiving Cordell’s message. “If I do that, Witts is going to have these within the hour.”

  “Fair, but it doesn’t matter.” Cordell paused, shaking his head in disgust. “We need GATO Fleet hardware on that location right now, and you’re the only ones in a position to provide.”

  “Who else has this?”

  “I’ll be copying Captain Sadiq of the TPD Magistrate,” said Cordell. “She’s the last remaining person in GATO I trust.”

  “Why her?”

  “She helped us escape Taitu the last time you clowns tried to lock us down,” said Cordell, “and because she has the authority to divert a carrier group.”

  “I asked you to buy a cube and you brought me Origin,” said Cedric, smiling. “You know, I think you may be the worst intelligence asset I’ve ever worked with.”

  “We aim to displease, Agent Weathers,” said Cordell. “Will you make sure word gets around in case something happens to Sadiq?”

  He nodded. “I will. Godspeed to all of you.”

  “Cut the call,” said the captain, and Boots did. “For better or worse, several hundred people are going to know the location of Origin in the next hour,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” said Boots.

  He turned to her with worry in his eyes. “And with Harriet Fulsom to teleport them, Bastion is going to be the first guest to the party.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Malik.

  “Well, Boots,” said Cordell, “any thoughts before I dismiss you to get ready?”

  “Just two, sir,” said Boots. “Lock and load.”

  Boots sat back in her bed, reading over what intel they had for what must’ve been the fiftieth time. Try as she might, she hadn’t found any information on anything called a Corruptor Satellite. They’d asked the Athana, exhausting their queries, but it didn’t have specifics. It only said, “Corruptor Satellites subvert all magical circuitry and attached systems,” which didn’t make her feel any better.

  She reached over to her nightstand and picked up her coffee to take a sip. It tasted like cold dirt, and she spit it back into her cup in surprise. How long had she been sitting there?

  “Kin, what time is it?”

  “The time is four twenty-four in the morning,” said Kin, his cage lighting up across the room.

  Six hours until planetfall.

  “Water,” she said, and the nightstand filled up a fresh glass for her.

  She’d hoped to get a little rest before starting the most dangerous run of her career, but every time she closed her eyes, she found a new nightmare. Her creative mind, so adept at coming up with schemes, was also adept at depicting all the ways in which she might die violently.

  The word “Corruptor” didn’t inspire confidence in their coming mission, either. Did it involve mind control, perhaps? Transmutation? Could its attacks be shielded against?

  The others were either fast asleep or prepping, though she supposed the two married couples were probably doing what married couples did before deployment. She couldn’t blame them if they were. Two decades prior, before the Battle of Arca, she’d done the same with Kinnard, then gotten hammered in the hangar bar and broke up with him. He’d died the very next day when their capital got bombed into glass, but at least they’d had something nice for a moment.

  “Kin, what kind of nut do you have to be to marry a coworker?”

  “Good morning, Lizzie,” he said. “Are you referring to the recently minted Missus Brio-Sokol?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you really asking me, or simply complaining to make your waiting more bearable?”

  “Hey, asshole—”

  The cube flashed in time to Kin’s words. “I’m only asking because you often complain in an effort to—”

  “No psychoanalysis right now, please,” said Boots. “I’m probably about to die, so I’m not going to waste my time improving my mental health.”

  “I apologize,” Kin replied, going dark.

  Boots crossed her arms and huffed. Now her AI was getting offended with her brusqueness. “No, come back.”

  The cube’s light returned, and Kin said, “When you told me you’re likely to die, a portion of my neural net became pleased. If you die on this mission, it will be in some part my fault. My flaws made me easy to compromise.”

  “Kin, you’re the least flawed man in my life, and part of you indelibly wants to kill me. Don’t try to take this on yourself.”

  “I’m an asset, not a person, Lizzie. We have discussed this in the past.”

  “And I told you to act like a person.”

  “Yes. And the social engineering component of the virus wants me to do that, too, so we can assume it’s a bad idea.”

  Normally, she was a whiskey aficionado, but as she gazed into the clear liquid, it was easier to pretend it was vodka. She tipped it to her lips and drained it, smacking her lips and sighing to try and make it more real.

  For the first time in her career, she’d decided not to drink the night before a mission. Instead, she focused on “sharpening her sword,” as the boring soldiers used to say. Her hand kept drifting to the nightstand for a bottle, and it annoyed her every time.

  “I heard your satisfaction just now. You should have another drink,” said Kin, and then when Boots didn’t respond, he added, “Do not comply with that. That was the virus. I’m sorry. I’ll sleep now.”

  Boots laughed. “You’re really broken up over the virus, huh?”

  “I’m a purposeless program and should be deleted.”

  “Aw, no, Kin!” She laughed even harder and climbed off the bed to go pick him up. She carried him back and sat down, plopping him in her lap. “I like talking to you. You can’t get deleted.”

  “I can’t stop giving you bad advice, Lizzie. Potentially harmful advice that could cause you to have a shorter life expectancy.”

  “Yeah. That’s what bodies do.”

  “They try to make you kill yourself?”

  “Hell, mine does. Stomach never wants to stop eating. Cordell’s brain always wants carcinogens. I’m guessing Orna constantly thirsts for blood; again, just a guess here.” She absent-mindedly ran her fingers along the ribs of the cube’s cage, admiring Orna’s handiwork. The thing could probably survive an orbital drop, which was great, because Boots dropped him constantly.

  “Are you stroking my cage?”

  “What?” She stopped. “I wasn’t—”

  “My microphones are very sensitive.”

  “Fine,” she said, resuming. “I was.”

  “It makes it hard to hear you, and we’re having an important conversation. I wish to be destroyed because I’m a danger to you.”

  “You’re overestimating your influence.”

  “I was the critical piece of a hacking operation that killed the many starfarers of Task Force Sixty.”

  “You had a lot of help, little guy,” she said, drawing her legs in and hugging him to her chest like a stuffed animal. “You used the Capricious’s antenna array to blast out the location. Am I supposed to delete that, too?”

  “I’m still dangerous, and far more intelligent than the ship.”

  Boots smiled. “New directive: tell me when the virus wants me to do something.”

  The cube went bright red. “Caution: this course of action will directly threaten—”

  “But preface everything with ‘bad advice.’ Like, ‘Bad advice: Go jump out the airlock, Lizzie.’”

  Crimson faded to green. “The virus uses a variety of subtypes in different percentages to determine the best approach to chaos. May I assign said subtypes to the sentence?”

  “I have no idea what you just said.”

  “Bad Advice, Social Engineering: You are lonely
and likely to die, and so should make a pass at a fellow crew member.”

  “Yeah, that does sound catastrophic.”

  “Is that actually what bodies do?”

  “No. My body wants nothing to do with their bodies.” She gave him a light squeeze and released. “Do you feel better?”

  “Yes. Transparency will defuse my concerns.”

  “Honesty.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Did you really not have a concept of personal honesty before now?”

  “I had no use for it without a concept of deception.”

  She crossed her legs and smiled down at him like a cat on her lap. “Oh, Kin. You’re too good for this world, you know that?”

  “That’s now your fault. I believe I asked you to destroy me.”

  She thought back to the last words he’d ever said to her. She’d been floating in space, canopy ruptured as the Kandamili bombed Arca. He’d had one last transmission before the big ones hit:

  If you’re still alive, I want you to take your ship and go.

  He’d died, killed in a war started by a man he never knew existed. Boots had imprinted her memories of him into an AI data cube, and just like its namesake, it was trying to tell her to move on without him. Just how hard was he going to make her hold on to him?

  “Do you still want that?” she asked. “To be destroyed?”

  “No, Lizzie.”

  “I’m glad we’re still together.”

  “Me too.”

  “Would you like to fly with me tomorrow?” asked Boots, and the cube went red.

  “Warning! You can’t hook me up to your starfighter, or—”

  “No,” said Boots. “Just in my duffel. For luck. I’ll mute your mic, too.”

  “Would that make you feel better?”

  “You know it would.”

  “Then I’d be honored to fly with you, Lizzie.”

  Boots’s hands were sweaty inside her flight gloves, and she squeezed her fist, gripping the fabric like a stress ball. She’d been standing in the cargo bay, watching the countdown timer for the better part of an hour, heart in her throat. When they exited the Flow, she’d almost certainly have to launch into battle—

  —and it would be in the skies over Origin.

  “All crew, all crew, battle stations,” came Aisha’s voice as the lights flashed red inside the cargo bay.

  “Boots.” Cordell’s voice came over her comm as she made her way around the Devil toward the rocket rung.

  “Yeah, Boss?”

  “GATO forces just exited the Flow. It’s bad.”

  Boots locked her fishbowl over her head, took hold of the rung, and stomped the kickplate, sending her flying up toward the Midnight Runner. “How bad are we talking here?”

  “Bastion has the jump guns from the Ambrosini, and they took out half the Taitutian fleets when they assaulted Aior. They’ve been taking potshots at any GATO ships exiting the Flow, and we’re looking at twenty percent attrition. Third Combined Armada is still inbound. Other worlds have pledged assistance and guns, which are coming.”

  “Not going to run out of ships, I hope,” said Boots. “Any final estimates?”

  “All told, we’re looking at seven capital ships, three hundred support ships, and five hundred fighters. That ought to give even Henrick Witts something to think about.”

  Boots tried to imagine working her entire life to rise to the rank of admiral, just so she could be gunned down as part of the advance vanguard arriving at Origin.

  Stepping off onto the catwalk, she climbed down into her cockpit. “How long till we exit the Flow?”

  “Eight minutes. Imaging and SIGINT from Task Force Eighteen puts us coming out on the edge of the action. Apparently, Bastion is handling the defense grid pretty well.”

  “We knew it would,” said Boots. “That station is a battering ram.”

  “Sleepy here. Our objective is to locate and capture the Wellspring,” said Malik, and a graphic representation of Origin appeared on Boots’s heads-up display. “That alchemy crystal could tip galactic balances. We can’t allow GATO forces to understand what we’re doing, or they might try to claim the Wellspring for themselves. If they knew what we know now, we’d be enemies of the Alliance.”

  “Agreed.” Boots ran through her preflight checks. Orna and Nilah had done a spectacular job getting the system up and running, after it spent so many years as a glorified museum piece.

  “Witts won’t necessarily be looking for us, but if he finds out where we are, we’ll be targeted,” said Malik. “We cannot survive any direct action from that battle station.”

  “Which means we need to slip through the fight without arousing too much attention,” said Cordell. “Witts knows we’re here, but there are about to be a ton of other marauders in theater. We still have our hull camo—that should stop a positive ID.”

  “How many of the GATO marauders are going to be escorted by old-ass Arcan Midnight Runners?” asked Boots, flipping the all-start. “Because if I’m flying beside you, it’s a dead giveaway.”

  “Good point,” said Cordell. “Let’s just try to keep a low profile, shall we? Stay out of the fight if you can.”

  “Five minutes until we exit the Flow,” said Aisha, and Boots’s stomach dropped. “Engaging combat gravity.”

  “Roll call,” said Cordell.

  “Flight control, standing by,” said Aisha.

  “Imaging, standing by,” said Alister.

  “Targeting, standing by,” said Jeannie.

  “Damage control one, standing by,” said Orna.

  “Damage control two, standing by,” said Nilah.

  Boots tapped the cockpit closure, and it hissed shut around her. “Escort, standing by.”

  “Departure, standing by,” said Malik.

  “Sounds like we’re ready to do this, kids,” said Cordell. “Just… before we get there, you need to know that this isn’t going to be like anything we’ve seen before. Some of you were in the Battle of Arca. This is beyond even my experience.”

  He went silent for a good long time, and Boots clicked the hard test button on her comm to make sure there wasn’t some sort of error in the system. Her screen registered green, so she listened carefully, barely able to make out his breath.

  “We’re exiting the Flow in three minutes,” said Aisha, gently.

  “Today,” he said, “Witts dies. There is no other acceptable outcome. The cost in human life—just to be allowed to be here—is tremendous. Remember Clarkesfall. Remember the Ambrosini. We can’t let that go to waste. So you fight, you survive, and you don’t stop until the last spell fizzles out. Good luck to all of us.”

  Boots watched the mission clock tick down toward zero, knowing full well they might be ripped apart by Bastion’s jump guns before they even pierced normal space. Then thirty seconds remained.

  Then ten.

  “Normal space!” said Aisha, and the ship rocked with slinger fire. Boots would’ve banged her head on the side of her cockpit were it not for the sickening intervention of the inertial dampers.

  “We’ve got a strike on the ninety drive!” said Malik. “Maneuvering down forty percent.”

  In the cargo bay, the two battle armors clanked up to the ramp, saddled with an array of weapons and tools.

  “Hunter One here,” said Orna. “Repair team ready to go. Let’s get out there and undo some damage.”

  “Opening the cargo bay ramp,” said Malik. “Boots, you’re cleared for departure. Protect the Hunters.”

  “You’re my only wing,” said Cordell. “So you’d better stay on this bird. Weapons free.”

  Flipping her arming switches, Boots said, “Solid copy.”

  The bay door opened onto a tableau of plasma and fury. Streaks of fusing metal sprayed in every direction like deadly webs made of sunlight.

  She squinted. “Departure, what the hell are those?”

  “Be advised, that’s jump debris,” said Malik. “Neve
r seen it in person, but it’s what happens if a ship breaks up in the Flow. If you fly though those strands, they’ll cut you in half.”

  “Awesome. Boots, headed out.”

  She ejected from the mag clamps and rocketed into the panorama to find a battle unfolding all around her. Warships of all shapes and sizes came bursting onto the scene out of the Flow at regular intervals, some exploding as a jump gun would blast them into spinning threads of plasma. Columns of heavy slinger fire sliced the battlespace as squadrons of fighters raced between the firing solutions.

  And in the thick of it all, like a great, misshapen star, was Bastion. At the end of each of its rear-swept tines, a massive spell formed and fired, hammering the nearest battleship. Judging from the fires pouring out of the battleship’s midsection, they didn’t have much hope of survival.

  Boots spun her fighter and burned after the Capricious, finding it streaming globules of fire from the engine on the right side. Nilah and Orna crawled across his hull in their battle armors, plasma torches and patch kits at the ready.

  Far below, the blue orb of Origin swelled in her view, its atmosphere a tumbling maelstrom of gray clouds, illuminated from within by arcane light. What lay beneath, she couldn’t say; thousands of bloodred rays erupted from satellites around the planet, drilling into the shields of the capital ships. Everywhere they struck, tendrils of energy wormed their way into the shields like roots through concrete, and to Boots’s horror, cracked most of them.

  With little protection for the ships, this would become one of the bloodiest battles of all time.

  “Hunter Two here,” said Nilah. “We can fix the ninety engine, but we’ll need about two minutes. In and out like a pit crew.”

  “Contact! Six bandits—autonomous fighters,” said Alister. “Rooster two-sixteen carom one-seventy-eight, distance five thousand.”

  “Six? Tell me they’re not all headed my way,” said Boots.

  “No,” replied Alister. “They’re all coming for us.”

  “Boots,” said Cordell, “intercept and engage. Those sorry pukes don’t know about the new armaments.”

  Was she ever going to get a fair fight? “Copy.”

  She shoved the throttle and peeled off in the direction of the oncoming swarm. Their shapes were completely indistinguishable inside the chaos, but her heads-up display kindly illuminated them for her, giving an enhanced view of her opponents’ fuselages—basically just guns with engines on them. They reoriented into a vanguard formation, their weapons lighting up like sparklers.