by Ryk Brown
She held her body in proper position, trying to maintain control as she continued her descent. The computerized voice counted down her altitude as she plummeted to the surface. In seconds, the automated system would deploy her drogue chute to decelerate her to safer speeds, prior to extending her arms to utilize the airfoils of her wingsuit.
The next jerk came seconds later, as her drogue chute deployed. She could feel the tethers around her legs, beating against her sides as the harness struggled to keep her in a head-down attitude. Again, her rig straps pulled hard against the tops of her shoulders, as the drogue chute decelerated her further.
The computerized voice in her helmet comms continued to call out her altitude, adding her speed every few call-outs. Jessica could barely hear the announcements over the sound of the rushing air and the thunder. Instead, she glanced at the digital displays along the top, inside edge of her visor. She was still high enough that she required her mask to breathe, but not for much longer.
Every time the lightning crackled, her eyes darted left and right, trying to catch a glimpse of Commander Telles. But she saw nothing, only the heavy fog.
A red warning light flashed on her visor, and the computerized voice announced, “Prepare for drogue disconnect.” Seconds later, the pressure across the tops of her shoulders lifted, her drogue chute having detached.
Jessica spread her arms and legs, allowing the fabric between them to fill with air. Once she had spread them as far as she could, she began to pitch up. Her muscles strained against the force of the wind. She had made more than twenty jumps in wingsuits during her time at the academy, but never at such speeds, nor at such altitudes.
Seconds later, she began to feel more in control, as she achieved proper flight attitude. A directional tape appeared on the upper, inside edge of her visor, adding direction of flight data as well as speed, altitude, and rate of descent. Finally, she felt as if she had some semblance of control over her situation. It was a welcome relief, but she was not down yet.
Suddenly, she was no longer in the clouds. Patrisk-Dortah appeared below and ahead of her, its lights spreading across the land as far as the eye could see. A wave of relief came over her as she spotted Commander Telles a hundred meters ahead and to her left. She followed his lead as he began a turn to the left.
The next two minutes were spent doing a series of turns to decelerate further. Finally, her speed display turned from red to green, indicating a safe chute-deployment speed.
Jessica spotted the commander’s main chute trailing out of his rig, and she pulled her chute release as well. Shortly after, they were both swinging below fully deployed, dark gray canopies. She continued her descent, following the commander as he turned to parallel the coastline. It was still early, only a few minutes after the sun had set over the capital of the Jung Empire, and the risk that someone might spot them was high, but there was no other choice. Nathan’s execution was scheduled for the next morning.
A minute later, she was submerged in the warm, Dortahn Sea, sinking slowly toward its murky bottom. She released her harness and wiggled out of it, allowing the weighted rig to pull itself and her chute downwards.
Jessica pulled her fins from their holding points on her thighs, and donned them. She took a moment to spin around looking for the commander, but the light was poor, and he was nowhere to be found. She took a reading from the directional tape on the inside of her face shield, and began swimming toward the planned coordinates. Her navigation system would guide her toward the rendezvous point, and she knew that the commander had entered the water nearby.
A feeling of relief again washed over her, as she had completed the first, crucial task of the mission. She had survived insertion from half a light year away.
* * *
“Scott!” the guard called from the small window in the cell door. His voice was gruff, and his English heavily accented. To Nathan, most Jung sounded like they had a mouthful of food when they tried to speak English. “What for you to want for eating?”
Nathan looked up from his table, confused. “What?”
“Eat!” the guard repeated impatiently. “What like you?”
Nathan was confused. “I have a choice?”
“What?” The guard looked baffled by his response.
“I can choose?” Nathan repeated slowly.
“Yes! Yes! What you want?”
“Ah, like as my last meal?”
“Yes, yes!”
Nathan set down his pen and rose from the table. “I don’t know,” he said, as he moved toward the door. “I don’t suppose you have dollag, do you?”
“Dollag?”
“No, I suppose not. How about some beef? You know, steak?”
“I not to know this,” the guard said.
Nathan sighed. “What is your name?”
“Me? Trever. Trever Soray.”
“I’ll tell you what, Trever. Since I don’t know what your people have to offer, other than the slop you’ve been feeding me the past month, I’ll let you decide. What would you choose?”
“Me?” the guard asked, surprised.
“Yes. If this was your last meal, what would you choose?”
Trever smiled, and began describing his choices in great detail, but in Jung. It didn’t matter that Nathan didn’t understand a word. Just the sound of the guard’s voice as he described his choice made it seem delicious.
“I’ll take that, Trever,” Nathan said, smiling back. “And make it a double order. One for you, and one for me. Okay?”
“Yes, yes.” Trever smiled even more broadly. “Okay!” he added, before disappearing into the corridor.
* * *
The lights of the city reflected off the calm waters of the bay that ran into the side of Patrisk-Dortah. All along the waterfront, people made their way to and from the various restaurants and tourist attractions that heavily dominated the area. Despite the damage sustained by their world, the waterfront provided a much-needed escape from the difficulties that most Patrians had to cope with since the attack. It was easy to forget the problems of daily life here among the music, the calm waters, the colorful lights, and the many enticing aromas wafting from the restaurants.
People normally came from all over the Dortahn Sea to moor in the Toran Bay at the Jung capital city, even if only for a few days. Nowadays, however, their numbers were much greater, as the fallout from Zhu-Anok had damaged several of the harbors in the area. Boats that had been for recreational purposes had now become the only homes that many would know for quite some time, and there was work in the capital city, as it was to be the primary focus of the initial restorative efforts.
Raley Duntan had been lucky enough to have an employer with an eighteen-meter sailing yacht on the far side of the Dortahn Sea. The company had also been adversely affected by the attacks, but expected to be back up and running within a few months. Raley’s home had been destroyed, but his employer offered to let him and his wife, Alaya, live on his yacht, in exchange for keeping it safe from desperate people who might steal or ransack the boat.
Despite having no experience on the water, Raley and his wife had accepted the offer and sailed to Toran Bay to find temporary work. Here, amongst countless other boats carrying similarly displaced families, they had found a new sense of community. Raley had secured work with a company doing demolition of some of the more heavily damaged buildings in the capital city, and Alaya had found part-time work in one of the waterfront cafeterias that served the overworked fishing fleets prowling the waters of the Dortahn Sea.
Raley stood in the cockpit, gazing out across the water. The sight of the marker lights at the tops of so many masts swaying in the water was mesmerizing. Standing outside to watch the dancing lights while drinking a bottle of ale had become a nightly ritual for him. Alaya had gone to bed hours ago, as she h
ad to leave for work much earlier than he. It was a far cry from the life they had known, but they were surviving…
…Until now.
So captivating was the serenity of the night that Raley did not notice the two black-helmeted heads that broke the surface of the nearby water every so often to the starboard side of their boat. Nor did he notice when the larger of the two came up silently out of the water and climbed onto the transom of his boat. By the time he felt the man’s presence, it was too late.
There was a sudden, intense pain in the side of Raley’s neck, followed by a warm, wet feeling on his shoulders and upper torso. He could feel a muscular arm around his neck, and a body pressing against his back. His head began to spin, and everything went dark.
Commander Telles lowered the man’s lifeless corpse down to the deck without making a sound, then signaled to Jessica waiting in the water at the aft end of the boat.
Jessica climbed carefully up the boat’s swim ladder, staying as quiet as possible. By the time she climbed up into the cockpit and discovered the dead body, the commander was already inside the main cabin. She quickly followed him inside, wanting to avoid being spotted by anyone in the countless nearby boats.
As she reached the bottom of the companionway, the commander was already coming out of the forward cabin, a bloody knife in his hand.
“We are in luck,” he said in hushed tones. “There were both a male and female on board.”
“How is that lucky?”
“We should be able to find appropriate clothing, as well as funds. We can also use their tender to get to shore without raising suspicion. This should make it much easier for us to make our way through the city.”
Jessica stepped past the commander, peeking into the forward cabin. Lying on the bed was another body. A young woman, about her age, with long brown hair. For a moment, Jessica could imagine herself lying there on the blood-soaked sheets, her life unfairly taken from her. “Jesus, did you have to kill them?”
“They are the enemy,” the commander said, more as a reminder than a defense.
“They’re just a young couple on a boat,” Jessica argued. “Couldn’t we have just tied them up and gagged them?”
“And if they cried out,” the commander asked, “or managed to escape soon after our departure?”
Jessica did not respond, but she also did not look pleased.
“We have a mission to perform,” the commander explained. “A Ghatazhak will do whatever is required to complete his mission, in the most efficient manner possible. If that means taking innocent lives, then so be it.” The commander looked hard at Jessica. “Do you have a problem with that?”
Jessica thought for a moment. She thought about the commander’s explanation, and she thought about all she had gone through. She also thought about Nathan, locked up in a prison cell, alone, facing his execution only a sunrise away. “No problem,” she answered.
“Very well,” the commander said. “Find some appropriate clothing and change, while I remove their ID chips and prepare them for implantation into our bodies.”
Jessica looked at the young woman again. “I may be able to pass as her, but that guy was a good deal younger, and at least twenty kilograms heavier than you… And blonde.”
“Most of the population monitoring systems are still down,” the commander said as he moved to head back up the companionway. “Those who check the displays are overworked and understaffed. It is doubtful anyone will notice the difference.”
“I hope you’re right,” Jessica muttered as she opened the storage locker in the forward cabin and started rummaging through the dead woman’s clothing.
* * *
“Oh, my God!” Nathan exclaimed, as meat juices dribbled down his chin. “This is amazing!”
The guard smiled, nodding his head in triumph as he attacked his slab of meat as well.
“What did you say this is called?”
“Co-rin-tah-kot.”
“What is that? The name of the animal?” Nathan looked at the reddish-colored slab of meat on his plate. “It looks like it came from a big animal. Is it like a steer, or something?” Nathan knew the guard barely understood him, but he didn’t care. It was the first time he’d eaten with someone in over a month. Furthermore, it was the first good food he had eaten since his arrival on Nor-Patri.
Trever just looked at him, confused.
“Steer,” Nathan said, gesturing. “Big animal? Cow? Moo?”
“Moo?”
Nathan made a mooing sound.
“Ah! Eerrroooo!” the guard said, mimicking the sound the local animal made.
“So, it is beef!” Nathan declared, feeling triumphant in his breakthrough. “Or at least the Patrian equivalent.” He stabbed his slab of meat with his fork and cut off another bite. He raised it to his mouth, but Trever protested.
“No!” Trever took his own piece and slid it through the sauce on his plate, then raised it to his mouth. “Yes?”
Nathan did the same, and then placed the meat in his mouth. “Oh, yes,” he exclaimed, rolling his eyes in delight. “That is better!”
“Yes!” Trever laughed heartily as he cut off another piece of meat.
For a moment, as Nathan carved his next bite, the thought of stabbing Trever in the neck and trying to escape crossed his mind. But both he and the guard were locked inside the cell together. Nathan himself was in a fairly weakened state from his month of captivity, and Trever was considerably larger. Besides, Nathan rather liked the man, and he had procured an impressive meal for his last night among the living. He also reminded him a lot of his friend Vladimir, and their dinner was like all the meals they had shared aboard the Aurora.
“What is that?” Nathan asked, pointing at the pile of yellow, potato-like substance in a bowl in the middle of the table.
“Ergin tota,” Trever replied. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device, held it near the pile of yellow substance, and pressed a button. A spark leapt from the device, setting the pile of yellow mash aflame.
“Whoa!” Nathan exclaimed, watching the blue-green flames dancing on the food.
Trever grinned from ear to ear, babbling on about the burning yellow mash in Jung, none of which Nathan understood, but could appreciate Trever’s enthusiasm nonetheless.
Nathan picked up the serving spoon and reached for the burning pile, but again Trever objected.
“We wait?” Nathan asked.
“Yes, yes. We wait.”
The two of them continued attacking their respective slabs of corintakhat, all the while being entertained by the flickering flames. After several minutes, the color of the flames turned to amber, and the outer surface of the pile of yellow mash began to brown, becoming somewhat crusty as the flames altered the vegetable.
Finally, Trever leaned forward and blew out the flames. The pile of yellow mash was now covered with a golden brown crust that gave it the appearance of piecrust. Trever picked up the serving spoon and pushed it into the crispy outer layer, scooping up a generous portion. Much to Nathan’s surprise, the yellow mash inside had turned a stark white, and had firmed up considerably. It also had streaks of pale red running through the now firm white mash, as if some additional substance had been swirled into the mixture without them knowing.
Trever plopped the serving onto Nathan’s plate, then served himself an equal portion. “Eat!”
Nathan picked up his spoon and scooped up a small taste, making sure to include both the outer crust and the mash beneath. He brought it up to his mouth and paused, afraid that it would be too hot yet to eat. He watched as Trever shoveled a serving into his own mouth without pause, and decided to follow suit.
It was warm, but not hot. The golden-brown crust was firm, but not as crispy as it looked, and it had a flavor similar to melt
ed, caramelized cheese, like what he remembered around the edges of the grilled sandwiches his mother used to make for him as a child. The red-tinged, white mash underneath tasted like mashed potatoes, but with a spicy kick, which Nathan decided must have come from the red stuff that seemed to swirl through it.
“What you think?” Trever asked.
“That is really delicious,” Nathan said. “But where did the red stuff come from?”
Trever smiled broadly. “Magic.”
They continued to eat, jumping between the two main dishes, as well as the numerous side dishes that Trever had taken the liberty of ordering. They stuffed themselves for more than an hour, before finally reaching their breaking points, although Nathan suspected that Trever could have continued eating a bit longer.
* * *
General Bacca stood looking at his relatively empty living room, after the dealer that had purchased all his precious antiques had taken the last of the furniture away. It saddened him greatly to see them go, as some had been handed down through his family for generations. Having them moved to Patrisk-Dortah had cost him more than what he earned from selling them. He could imagine the disappointed look on his late father’s face, and his late mother crying.
It was necessary, he told himself. He had to survive, after all. Tomorrow morning, his name and reputation would turn from advantage to curse. He would need to sell everything in order to survive long enough to find a way off of Nor-Patri, and back to the world of his birth. He only hoped that things might be easier for him there.
“I have confirmed the sale of your private shuttle, General,” his aide reported from the doorway. “They will send a flight crew out in the morning to pick it up.”
