by Paul Hughes
“Space it.”
“No.” Lilith turned to Hunter. “There’s something we need to do first.”
He nodded in realization.
“Sir?” Hull was restless, his hands clenching and unclenching on nothing.
“What is it?”
“Do we have orders?” Hull’s eyes were now locked on the broken command display, the shattered biomech angel, the wires hanging like vines from ceiling displays.
“We’re making our own orders from now on.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take me to the body.”
Hull nodded an affirmative. “And sir?”
“What is it?”
“Your—” Hull’s hand went to his fly. His brow furrowed in embarrassment. He was one of the youngest soldiers on the vessel, just now growing facial hair for the first time. “Your—”
“Thanks, Hull.” Hunter blushed and zipped his pants.
Within her bubble, Lilith covered her smile with a silver hand.
“Let’s go.”
The head was gone now, crushed between the gears of the inner workings of a docking bay slither cradle. The vessel itself had twisted away from its dock, and now it sat incapacitated on the bay’s floor. Hunter could still see the coagulating black outline of his former commander’s end underneath the slither. The rest of the body was almost intact. Hunter flexed his swollen hand, felt the incisions threaten to tear open again. It could have been his blood under that vessel, splashed across the gears and pistons of the cradle. It could have been, but then it would have been red.
“It’s in the chest cavity.”
Hunter undid the soaked top of Tallis’s uniform, pulled the fabric back to reveal a hairless chest.
“You’ll have to crack through the bone. It’ll be between the hearts.” She pointed to a place just under the sternal notch. Hunter’s blade sliced through the thin film of near-skin in an “I” shape. He used the tip of the knife to fold back each flap. It wasn’t a human ribcage.
Hunter hesitated.
“You have to do it.” Lilith indicated her shielded hands, arms. “I can’t.”
Hull looked on with the other nine members of the officer class. The young men were uneasy; the events of the last few days had forever changed their purpose in this metal box between the stars.
Hunter bore down with his blade, holding it with both hands and shifting his weight directly down. The sternum cracked and he eased off, placing one hand on Tallis’s right shoulder and wrenching the knife to the left. The bone shield retracted with disconcerting biological precision.
“Believe me now?”
“Sir, I—” Hull’s grasped for words. “I didn’t mean to doubt you.”
“And you? And you?” Hunter stood from the opened corpse. “Do you believe me now?” The officers nodded in turn. The evidence was irrefutable.
He reached into the chest cavity with his bare hand and dug around until he found it. His hand retreated, clasped around the final evidence, trailing strands of viscous black matter, neither flesh nor machine, neither now nor then. He snapped the final connection, a vile umbilicus securing the device to the central cavity.
Hunter held out his hand, slow black spattering to the grid flooring.
His fingers uncurled to reveal a marble-sized silver sphere.
“Tallis was the mole. He was Mother’s link.”
“So now what? You’re in command.”
Hunter looked from Hull to Lilith. “We have to protect her. We have to hide. Mother will send someone to get her now.”
“But the Fleet is everywhere. Where can we hide?”
“We’ll take the ship to the Outer.”
“Where?”
“Deep.”
“How deep?”
Hunter stabbed his blade into the angel’s splayed body in a swift, brutal motion. That which had been Tallis remained motionless. The knife’s tip tapped against the surface of the table underneath the body.
“To the hilt.”
“And him?” Hull withdrew the blade from Tallis’s abdomen.
“Space him.”
“We’ll talk to Archimedes.” Lilith looked from Hunter to Hull. “Take care of the body and get that slither operational again. We’ll need it soon enough.”
“Yes, Catalyst.”
Lilithfleur shimmered for an instant.
“Don’t call her that.” Hunterzero glared, walked away. Without looking back, he spoke to the woman. “Come on. I need you.” She nodded to the officers, left the hangar.
“Open shutters.”
Blast shielding retracted from the forward bridge. Lilith slipped into the vacuum chair beside him, still wringing the static bubble gelatin from her hair. Hand on his shoulder, she leaned forward to look out at the planet below. Hunter exhaled slowly, chin in hand, looking at and through the ruined world.
“We have to get out of here.”
Hunter closed his eyes.
“Any ideas?”
“She knows exactly where we are. Tallis would have reported everything. And if—”
“You don’t think—”
“Yeah, there could be others.”
“System?”
beep click.
“Seal the bridge.”
click beep.
“I would have felt them, if there were more.”
“You don’t know that. It took you two decades to feel this one out. We don’t know what else is riding with us.”
Lilith slumped back into her chair. She let Tallis’s silver projector roll from hand to hand. “What should we do with this? We can’t keep it on Archimedes. It has to be a tracking device.”
“This whole fucking ship is a tracking device.”
“Well, there’s not much else out here.”
“Not in this system, but there were other vessels in the Outer. Other members of the Extinction Fleet, and the prison galleons from the saved worlds. We’ll run into one eventually.”
“We’ll run into one soon. I’m sure Mother’s already dispatched the whole fleet to come get you, and to kill me.”
“We can’t think like that.”
“I can.”
The silence was unbearable. Lilith curled into Hunter’s chair, squeezed him. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“It would be safer if we split up. I could hide you on a galleon and start the return to—”
“You can’t go back without me.”
“It’s the only—”
She took his face in her hands. Eyes locked. “You can’t go without me.”
Hunter kissed the side of her cheek, rubbed his nose along hers, inhaled her scent and knew. He turned to look out at the system. There’d been something tickling him at the base of his neck for so long, since they’d first arrived from the flux... Since they’d first begun to orbit the target world. He sat up. Lilith adjusted.
“Archimedes online.”
beep click. online.
“Cartographics.”
online. A grid appeared in the forward bridge bubble, superimposed with crystalline perfection.
“Highlight target system planets.”
done.
“Jesus... Look at that.”
The system was huge. There had to be dozens of planets highlighted by System’s cartographic overlay.
Lilith frowned. “There’s something wrong with them.”
“Yeah. Arch, extrapolate and display orbital patterns.”
beep click. done.
“It’s so—”
“It’s chaos.” Instead of planets orbiting along a central plane, almost every world moved independently. Several debris fields indicated where planets had actually collided. Something had severely damaged the natural orbital pattern of this solar system. “Arch, what could have caused this?”
click beep. analysis implies that this was once a binary system.
“Reconstruct.”
The rotating balls of holographic light fell neatly and fluidly int
o two distinct orbital patterns, horizontal and vertical. It was a magnificent dance, the ballet of light pathways, gravity wells, almost-intersections. At the center of the vertical plane, Archimedes reconstructed the missing star of the binary system.
Hunter shook his head. “It’s still too empty. Fill in the holes where any missing planets should be.”
Forty new points of light joined the dance.
Hunter looked at Lilith, back at the cartograph. “Okay. Okay... So where would one star and a few dozen planets disappear to?”
“I’m so sorry.” Hunter felt all of his energy, all of his vitality pour from his body at the man’s touch. Hannon’s touch, for that is what that silken mental embrace felt like. He was a stranger, but so remarkably familiar... “I never knew—”
Hannon smiled the sad smile of ancient resignation. “Of course you never knew, Zero.” He leaned in close to the incapacitated Hunter, gently, tenderly kissed his forehead, tousled his hair. The gesture was so kind, so loving. Who was this man?
With a wave of his hand, the beams of light holding Hunter suspended in the air slowly faded, lowered him to floor level, where he stood, weakly rubbing his hands over the cold gooseflesh of his forearms. Hannon’s head tilted in concern and then understanding, and he removed his black overcoat and wrapped it around Hunter’s shoulders.
“Come on, son. There’s much to talk about, and so little time.”
“Arch?” Descending waves of deja vu. Hunter blinked.
click beep. online.
“Display positions of any Fleet vessels within range.”
beep click. done.
Lilith squeezed his hand, inhaled sharply. Hunter’s heart sank. The system display was encircled by a collapsing cloud of new pinpricks of light.
“Identify closest vessel.”
The targeting reticule highlighted a single firefly in the black of the Outer. fleet destroyer rebecca.
“Time to intercept?”
at light X, rebecca will intercept in three standard days.
“It was a binary system. When your Extinction Fleet first made an appearance, we were able to hide one of our stars here. This vessel is all we have left.”
Hunter touched the miles of glass before him, which greeted his fingertips with a cool, static attraction. The airlock door cycled open beside him.
“You have the technology to place a solar system inside of a vessel?”
Hannon scoffed. “Not the entire system. Just one star and forty planets. The others were left behind, where Mother’s fleet eventually got to them. We’ve been hiding in the Outer ever since your genocide spread this far.”
Hunter slumped against the glass in realization. Hannon made no move to help him up this time, but stood behind him, arms crossed. Hunter looked at the assembled black-robed men standing in formation on either side of the airlock, watching him. Silent. Expressions of such loss on their faces...
“No women. Mother’s fleet—”
“Your fleet, Zero. Of course, you never knew. Your Fleur never knew. You were just following orders. The virus killed them all, even after we escaped with half of the system under shield. The catalyst was at work even before the final seal was welded into place.”
“I never—
—understand your contorted schemes, my sweet.” Whistler chuckled, raised the wine glass to his lips, paused. “But that is what makes you so attractive.”
Maire smiled.
“What exactly do you want me to do?”
“There should have been a tight-beam report from the girl’s ship days ago. They’ve fallen silent. I need you to find out where they are, what they’re doing.”
Sip. Nod.
“Tallis wouldn’t have just fallen off-scope.”
“So you think they’ve found him? They’ve pulled the plug?”
“Either that, or—”
“They’ve been destroyed?”
“Maybe.”
Whistler shook his head. “Somehow, I think you’d know if they were dead. If She were dead.”
“Maybe.”
Eyebrows arched.
“Well, I’ve been having some trouble lately. I can’t feel her as I used to.”
“She’s stronger than you now.”
Maire’s fingertips tapped the table.
“She’s starting to frighten you. You’re starting to wonder if it wouldn’t have been more prudent to kill your homeworld yourself.”
“Whistler, I—”
He waved away her comment. “I understand. You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Mother. I’ll go get her.”
“There’s one more thing.”
“What?”
Maire retrieved a silver projector and rolled it across the table. Whistler picked it up.
“Who’s this?”
“Go ahead. Turn it on.”
Whistler gave the silver a squeeze and tossed the ball into the air. With a flash, a third person entered Maire’s chamber.
“Who is he?”
The man smoothed his black robe.
“Lilith has become too close to a member of her crew. In his last report, Brendan Tallis told me that She was spending too much time alone with his XO. His name’s Hunter Windham... An interesting story. I want you to replace him with this. It took a few tries to get him right, but she shouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
“This is an emulation of my target?”
“Yes.”
“And what should I call you, boy?”
Hunter’s emulation looked from Maire to Whistler.
“Call me Seven.”
“Why Seven?”
Maire leaned forward, sipped her wine. “Like I said,” she wiped her lips, “it took a few tries to get him right.”
Whistler walked slowly around Seven, scrutinizing the projection. He lifted the young man’s chin up, used his black-gloved fingers to part the projection’s lips. Seven stepped back and grabbed Whistler’s hand with a swiftness that startled even Maire.
“Don’t touch me.”
Whistler grinned. “If this is the best you could do, I’d hate to see Messieurs One through Six.”
Maire studied her wine.
“When do we leave and what do we drive?”
“There’s a corvette in the launch pipe.”
“Light X?”
“And then some.”
“Good.”
“You’ll leave now.”
Whistler walked to Maire’s side, took her hand, kissed it. “I shall miss you intensely, mon chere.”
“Of course you will, James.” She smiled, waved her hand over the control panel on her desktop. Whistler and Seven’s projections snapped to a static halt, the silver machines instantly uploaded to the waiting corvette.
She sighed, inhaled. More wine. The door alert chimed.
“Come in.”
Whistler walked into the chamber, his simper and stride denoting his amusement. He took a seat in front of Maire, poured more wine into “Whistler’s” glass.
“He really thinks he’s me?”
“He does, and he does, and you do.”
His glass paused halfway to his lips. “Don’t play that game with me. I know who I am.”
“Of course you do, James darling.”
The wine was as good as it could be.
He cleared his throat. “You look younger today.”
Maire leaned back in her chair, the smile of politics dissembling slowly from her face.
“You can leave tomorrow.”
“You aren’t planning to—”
“I don’t have to tell you my plans.”
“Don’t start anything without me, Maire.”
The silence hung in the stillness between them, an unwelcome participant in the history of an extinction.
Maire cleared her throat.
“You can take this with you.” She handed him a silver projector.
“And this would be number...” He counted on his fingers. “Eight?”
/> “It is Nine.”
Whistler frowned. “Did I miss something?”
“The Eight is presently indisposed. He’ll be delivering something in person to the target Windham.”
“A slow and painful demise?” He grinned.
“A Machine.”
“What sort of machine?”
“The machinery of night. It will be an end of sorts for young Hunter Windham.”
“His father served us well. He finally located the—”
“He did, but his son has become far too problematic. He must be sent away.”
Whistler nodded. He held the silver ball up to the light. “This one will work.” He looked into Maire’s colorless eyes. “I won’t fail you.”
“I know, James. Just bring her home. It’s time to begin
draining from the chamber after the vessel slammed to a halt. She surged forward against her restraints, her curls lazily swimming out before her, reaching for something that her half-decade could not yet comprehend. She heard the muffled clang of metal against metal, felt the pressure within the chamber change. Exhausted eyes looked at the top of her prison, where she could see the phase flux level dropping quickly. The surface fell to the level of the top of her head, continued withdrawing. She strained upward, her nose and mouth rising above the flux surface, gasping as she vomited the invasive gel from her stomach, coughed it from her respiratory system. She shook her head, the oily silver spattering from her hair, drizzling from her ears, eyes, nose. Tear ducts released and mercury stained her cheeks. Lily was left wet with the dissolving flux, belted into her chair, shivering with the freeze of deep space.
The last traces of the phase drained from the room and the air began to warm.
How long..?
The child sobbed, replacing silver tears with clear and salt.
The chamber door sparked with static release and opened across the walkway before her.
Nan?
The angel strode across the catwalk to the restraint node in the chamber’s center. It looked Lily over from head to toe, checked a monitor just out of the child’s vision besind her. The restraint hub on her chest sighed with pneumatic release and lifted. The chair freed her arms and legs.
