Tales: The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 3

by Luther M. Siler

  PROBABLY, Namey said. DWARVEN SHIPS TEND TO BE ROBUSTLY BUILT.

  "Get there," Brazel said. "As quick as you can. Does that iceball have an atmosphere?"

  NO, Namey said.

  "So we've just got the crash part to worry about. Move," Brazel said. "Grond, let's get suited up. We're looking for survivors first, then the urn."

  The two of them headed to their quarters.

  * * *

  True to the Nameless' predictions, the ship crashed several minutes before they were able to reach it. Luckily, external scans indicated that it had managed to land somewhere relatively soft and had sustained surprisingly little damage from the crash.

  "Weak gravity," Brazel said. "Lucky for them."

  The Nameless put down on a flat patch of ice half a kilometer from the crash site. It sunk a meter or two into the surface, then rested on something more solid.

  CORRECTION, Namey said. THE PLANET HAS AN ATMOSPHERE. IT IS CURRENTLY FROZEN, HOWEVER. WE JUST LANDED IN IT.

  "Explain," Brazel said.

  IT IS WINTER IN THIS HEMISPHERE, Namey said. THE ATMOSPHERE IS MOSTLY NITROGEN. IT IS TOO COLD FOR THE NITROGEN TO REMAIN GASEOUS.

  "I am suddenly much less excited than I was about walking to that shipwreck," Grond said.

  "The suits can handle it," Brazel said.

  "The nitrogen snow is over your head," Grond said. "It's almost over mine. And I don't know about you, but I didn't bring my snowshoes."

  "Shit," Brazel said. "Namey, how close can we get?"

  MUCH CLOSER, the ship said. AND THE HEAT FROM THE CRASH AND THE LANDING WILL TEMPORARILY SUBLIMATE MOST OF THE SNOW.

  "Do it," Brazel said.

  * * *

  "I'm proud of you," Brazel said.

  "And why is that?" Grond asked, making the last adjustments to his envirosuit.

  "We're on an iceball and you're not griping about it," the gnome replied. Grond had always hated cold.

  "I like money, and for once this isn't your fault," Grond said. "It's not like you personally decided to bring us here. That said, let's get this the hell over with."

  Brazel pushed a button and the airlock door slid open. The pair felt the blast of cold even through their envirosuits, and there was already snow falling as the atmospheric gases re-froze. The dwarven ship, an unsightly rectangle that looked to be mostly engine, was dug into a rapidly-resolidifying trench a few meters away. Luckily, the entry hatch was still exposed.

  "Any life signs on the ship?" Grond asked.

  ONE, Namey said. THERE IS A HULL BREACH. THE SHIP IS LOSING PRESSURE RAPIDLY.

  "Let's move, then," Brazel said. "That means they lost some people. The boat's too big for a single pilot."

  "I take it that means we're using the fast way on the airlock," Grond said.

  "Ship's already crashed," Brazel said. "And they're already running out of air. No need to be delicate." The slow way was carefully hacking past the door's security or disabling the lock. The faster way was to just blow the hell out of the thing.

  Grond nodded and opened fire on the airlock. A few shots from his heavy pistol melted the locking mechanism into slag, and the halfogre tore the door from its frame before the metal had time to cool back down again.

  Brazel moved inside. The inside airlock was closed but not locked. "Lucky," he said. There ship was already losing atmosphere; there was no reason to make it worse.

  THE LAYOUT OF THE SHIP IS STANDARDIZED, Namey said. THE LIFE SIGN IS IN THE COCKPIT.

  Standard dwarven layout meant a cargo hold in the back between the engines with maintenance spaces on either side, a central corridor flanked by crew spaces— probably with common areas on the left and some number of bunks on the right— and a central cockpit/bridge at the front of the ship. Brazel and Grond turned left, heading for the cockpit.

  Grond turned on his external speakers. "STAND DOWN!" he shouted, his amplified voice echoing throughout the boat. "WE'RE NOT HOSTILES. THIS IS A RESCUE OPERATION."

  "Hope they're paying attention," Brazel said.

  The cockpit door was locked and windowless, with no indication of what might be on the other side. Grond knocked loudly a few times. The two of them listened carefully, but there was no sign of any movement or sound from the other side.

  "Break it," Brazel said. Grond shot the lock out and then pried the door open, straining against the first few inches until its internal mechanisms broke and the door flew out of the way. Brazel led the way inside, pistol in hand.

  There were three dwarves inside the cockpit: a female and two males. The female was still alive, but unconscious. A knot was already forming on her forehead. She'd probably been bounced around pretty hard during the crash.

  The males were dead.

  They looked as if they had been dead for weeks. Both bodies were half-rotten, a pool of unidentifiable fluids around each of them. One was sitting in the pilot's chair. The second lay in the corner of the room, clearly tossed there by the crash.

  "Oooh, that's not good," Grond said.

  "Is the urn in here?" Brazel asked. Moving quickly, he put a portable oxygen supply over the survivor's mouth and nose.

  Grond looked around. "I don't see it— wait," he said, moving the corpse in the corner out of the way.

  "Don't touch the body," Brazel said.

  "I'm not," Grond said, holding on to what looked like a clean part of the dwarf's suit. "This one's dressed for a spacewalk. He musta grabbed the urn by hand. That's impressive."

  "She let a male do that?" Brazel said.

  "The other male's the pilot," Grond said. "This is one of the other rogues. It's gotta be." Underneath the body was a small capsule made of ceramic and glass. There had been a lid at one point, but it was missing. Grond picked it up.

  "Empty," he said. "There's not even any residue in here."

  "Then it never even had any ashes in it," Brazel said.

  "Take it or leave it?" Grond said.

  "Leave it," Brazel said. "It killed those two. No way they died in the crash and ended up looking like that. Let's get the hell out of here. You wanna carry her?"

  Grond shrugged and picked up the survivor, draping her over a shoulder. "She gonna survive outside?"

  "We have to move fast," Brazel said. "If there's cold-weather gear on this boat anywhere I wouldn't know where to find it. Much more than a few seconds outside will probably kill her."

  "Let's check the crew cabins," Grond said. "If they knew to come to this system they might have come prepared to land here."

  Brazel headed for the berths while Grond hauled the unconscious dwarf toward the airlock.

  "Good call," the gnome said over comm. "There's a set right here. It'll take a minute to figure out how to set all the seals, but—"

  FOUR SHIPS INCOMING, Namey said. I WOULD SUGGEST HURRYING.

  "We stuff her in it and hope she doesn't die," Grond said. "Get here."

  Brazel hauled the empty snowsuit toward his partner, and the two of them wrapped the dwarf in it as best they could and Grond wrapped his arms around her, holding her to his chest in hopes that his own cold-weather gear would shield her from the elements They bolted out of the airlock, leaving the bodies and the capsule behind. There was already nearly a meter of snow outside, and visibility was nearly nothing.

  "Hit the engines, Namey," Brazel said. "We're blind out here."

  Grond switched his grip on the dwarf, holding her under one arm, and grabbed Brazel with the other, depositing the gnome unceremoniously on top of his shoulders. There was a loud hissing sound as the Nameless ignited its engines and the snow turned back to gas again. Moments later, the three of them were on the ship.

  "Get her to the medbay," Brazel said. "And then get ready for whatever's next."

  Calling what the Nameless had a "medbay" was perhaps overstating things, but Grond was able to get the dwarf secured and on an IV drip within a few minutes. The drip would keep her unconscious and begin repairing any injuries that she might have. If anything w
as broken, they could set that later. The boat would keep her stable until they got somewhere more advanced. He finished setting her up and headed for the copilot's seat in his quarters. His viewscreen was ominous, as the Nameless showed four hostile ships in what looked very close to combat range.

  "You in?" Brazel said over the ship comm.

  "Go," Grond said, and his seat kicked him in the back as Namey took off.

  WE ARE BEING HAILED.

  "Bring it up," Brazel said, and a holographic image of a very irritated-looking dwarven woman appeared in front of him and Grond.

  "Who the hell are you?" the dwarf asked.

  THE SIGNAL IS BEING SENT FROM THE LEAD SHIP, Namey said.

  "Who the hell are you?" Brazel asked. "We're investigating a crash. We're being helpful."

  "No one asked you to be helpful," the other dwarf spat.

  "Isn't that what distress signals are usually for?"

  "Leave the system now," she answered. "This is our business."

  OTHER SHIPS IN THE SYSTEM ARE HEADED OUR WAY, Namey chimed in. WE HAVE BEEN NOTICED.

  "Not now," Brazel hissed, breaking the ship-to-ship comm for a moment. "There was no one alive on that ship," he said to the dwarf. "The cockpit was crushed. No survivors."

  "I don't think I believe you," the dwarf said.

  "Look, we don't need to get involved in whatever dispute you ladies are having," Brazel said. "You go right ahead and explore that ship. You'll see we're telling the truth. We'll just be on our way—"

  The Nameless' shields flared into life as the lead dwarven skiff opened fire.

  "We running or fighting?" Grond shouted.

  "Both!" Brazel answered, flipping the Nameless out of the way of the oncoming ships and speeding off.

  At least dwarven ships usually aren't that fast, he thought. That lead ship looked pretty deluxe, though. It was twice the size of the other two and looked ten times as expensive. Other ships started to pop onto the viewscreen as more and more of their pilots realized something interesting was happening at the outskirts of the system.

  Meanwhile, Grond opened fire, stressing the lead ship's shields. One of the backups strayed into the field of fire and caught a lucky shot directly to the engines, spinning down into 5254SDO-6.

  "That one doesn't count!" Brazel yelled. "You didn't shoot him! He just flew into the lasers!"

  Grond laughed. "He's gone, ain't he?"

  The Nameless was already starting to leave the two remaining smaller ships in the distance. Grond tasked a missile to each of them and focused his attention on the lead ship. Getting a lock-on was difficult, as both ships were ducking and weaving as quickly as they could and the other boat's shields appeared to be a bit stronger than theirs were.

  "Just slow them down," Brazel said. "We're getting out of here as quick as we can. Namey, any system. I don't care which one. Just get out of here. Fast." He headed for the outskirts of the system. Getting as far away from 5254SDO-6's gravity well would help with a rapid jump to tunnelspace.

  The Nameless lurched as a missile exploded nearby— a close miss, but enough to rock the ship. Grond cursed and shot back, overpowering another ship's shields and causing enough damage that it pulled out of the fight. The capital ship continued to close on them, but it was now fending off attacks from other dwarven ships as well.

  "I'd like to point out that I said this was the ship that was going to win the fight," Grond said.

  Brazel blinked. "You're about to be blown into a cloud of atoms and you're being smug?"

  A few shots got through the other ship's shields, tracing a scar across its surface.

  "Never a bad time to be smug," Grond replied. A moment later, he and Brazel felt the telltale shudder as the Nameless jumped into tunnelspace.

  "Ought to be safe for a few minutes," Brazel said. "Namey, I want three or four jumps in random directions then start getting us home. Kill a few hours leaping around, though; let's not make it easy to follow us."

  ACKNOWLEDGED, the boat said.

  * * *

  "So," Brazel said to the dwarf as she slowly awakened. "You have some explaining to do." It had taken longer for her to come to consciousness than he expected. The Nameless was returning to Arradon through tunnelspace, and no trace of dwarven pursuit had been discovered. As far as any of them could tell, they'd gotten away clean, at least for now.

  The dwarf fixed one eye on Brazel. The other didn't seem entirely interested in opening just yet. She was young; younger than Brazel would have expected, to be out actively competing for her grandmother's inheritance. Her beard had been growing in, but she'd trimmed it down, and not carefully, either. It wasn't a style choice he'd seen from many dwarves. Then again, she'd let one of the male dwarves pilot her ship, too. Something odd was definitely going on.

  "Where 'm I?" she mumbled.

  "Safe, for now," Brazel said. "Your ship crashed. We saved you."

  She coughed. "Brothers?"

  Brazel thought about that for a moment. Her first priority was to ask about her brothers. Interesting.

  "They didn't make it," Brazel said. The dwarf closed her eyes again, punching a fist into the webbing of the cot she was lying on.

  "I'm sorry, if that matters to you at all," he added.

  "Are you taking me back?" she asked, sounding defeated. A few weak coughs escaped her chest.

  "Right now we're just taking you with us," Brazel said. "Until we decide what to do with you. That's up in the air right now."

  A harder coughing fit hit her, and Brazel fit an oxygen mask over her face.

  "Just breathe for a few minutes," he said. "Don't try to talk." Then, addressing the Nameless: "How's she look, anyway?"

  HER VITALS ARE STABLE, the boat responded. SHE APPEARS TO HAVE SOME FOREIGN MATERIAL IN HER LUNGS. THAT IS THE CAUSE OF THE COUGH. VERY LITTLE IN THE WAY OF INJURIES. IT IS SURPRISING THAT SHE WAS NOT MORE SERIOUSLY HURT IN THE CRASH. The bruise on her head was mottled, but already less livid than it had been when they'd found her.

  The dwarf lay still for a few minutes, breathing deeply, then sat up a bit and removed the mask.

  "My name is Dust-of-the-Plains," she said. "I'm guessing you know why my ship crashed."

  "We have an inkling," Brazel said. "Or, at least, we have an inkling of what you were doing out there."

  "That goddamned urn," Dust-of-the-Plains said. "Pride-of-the-Abandoned was convinced it would solve all of his problems in life. Told him it wouldn't." She coughed again, a trace of red coming away on the brown skin of her hand as the fit stopped. "What happened to our ship?"

  "Our ship?" Brazel asked.

  "We don't all think like our mothers," she snapped. "Pride-of-the-Abandoned and Nyd were my protectors when I was growing up. My friends. My only friends. None of my sisters or my mother or my grandmother really wanted anything to do with me. Yeah, it was our ship. Not mine."

  Brazel backed away a bit, raising his hands in apology. "Whatever you want," he said. "It's none of my business. You've got to admit, though, it's not the way things are usually done with you folk."

  Dust-of-the-Plains sneered. "That's the idea," she said. "Where is the urn, anyway?"

  "Underneath your brother's body," Brazel said. "We're pretty sure whatever was in the urn was what killed the two of them. Was Pride-of-the-Abandoned the one who went out and snagged the thing?"

  "That was Nyd," she said. "Pride-of-the-Abandoned was the pilot. What do you mean it killed them? Our ship crashed."

  "You seem to have cared about your brothers," Brazel said. "You may want to wait a bit before I tell you about this. Get your head together."

  "Don't patronize me, gnome," she said.

  Brazel nodded. "Fine. Whatever the shit was in the urn, it practically melted both of them. They looked like they'd been dead for weeks, and dead in a humid, hot climate, for that matter, and not on a boat that had crashlanded into an iceball. We probably ought to have you in quarantine. I think whatever it was killed Pride-of-the-Abandoned hard
, enough that he dumped the ship into a death spiral toward the planet that the AI couldn't compensate for. Or maybe something in there went after the ship, too."

  He stared off into space for a moment. "Shit. We really should have thought of that before we let you on board."

  "We were in a bit of a hurry," Grond said from behind him. The halfogre had managed to make it into the medbay without Brazel hearing him coming. Nothing as big as he was had any right to be that quiet. Grond snuck up on people all the time without even trying.

  Dust-of-the-Plains started laughing, only stopping when another coughing fit forced her to.

  "Not the reaction I thought that news was going to get," Brazel said.

  She coughed again a few times. "You don't know me," she said. "I thought something like this was going to happen. The story about the urn was a lie. Should have known when the older sisters didn't head out looking for it. The whole damned thing was a honeypot. She wanted to kill off the males and the rogues. That's what it was about." She pounded a fist into her chest a few times.

  "And you watch. Your ship said I had something in my lungs? They're full of nanoparticles. I'm a walking goddamned bomb. I'd bet my entire generation's share of the inheritance that as soon as I get near another male I'm related to the cloud will blow me open to get to him."

  She collapsed back into her cot.

  "I'm fucked," she said. "She won."

  She laughed again.

  "Makes me wonder if Color-of-Rushing-Water and Starlight-in-the-Darkness are even dead. This is the sort of thing my grandmother would love to watch. The old hag is probably laughing her ass off somewhere."

  "So what do we do about it?" Grond asked. He exchanged a look with Brazel, leaving the question And who's going to be paying us for this? unspoken.

  * * *

  Very few dwarves lived on Arradon, and only two or three kept lodgings at Rhundi's resort, so once her engineers had scanned the Nameless every way they could think of and determined that the ship wasn't harboring anything that could harm any of their guests they were allowed to land. Dust-of-the-Plains was quickly stuffed into an isolation suit and hustled away to the quarantine wing of the resort's medical facilities, where gnomish doctors and tech staff poked and prodded and scanned her, trying to figure out if the nanoparticles could be deactivated or cured and if they were likely to become active again anytime soon. This spurred any number of lively arguments, including whether the word "deactivated" or "cured" was the right one to describe what they were trying to do.