by Brett Patton
Even if they were close to the Core of the Union, it wouldn’t matter. The only interstellar travel humanity had was via the Displacement Drive, and the Displacement Drive required a mass of ten billion metric tons or more to work. So, unless Matt found a spare antimatter reactor, a Displacement Drive, and a convenient asteroid, his flight was soon going to end.
Behind Matt, new tags appeared, above pinpricks of fusion exhaust:
DEMON 021: AD. NORAH GRACIA
DEMON 007: AD. MARJAN VELUSZIK
DEMON 012: AD. MIKEY KERR
His adepts were coming for him. Worse, he was sandwiched between the UUS Helios and the Demons. They would soon be in firing range.
Could he hold the adepts off? Possibly. Maybe he could even defeat them. But then he’d have to conquer the entire Helios in order to make it home.
Do whatever it takes, make your own time at all costs. The thought was like a whisper in his mind, only half heard. The scratchy voice of the Mecha.
I have to agree, came another thought.
Where the hell did that come from? Matt wondered. That other voice was clearly outside himself.
You can hear my thoughts? Sudden panic overlay the second voice. It wasn’t the voice of the Mecha. It was something new.
Who are you? Matt asked.
I am 076-50-035A, came a thought, sudden and crisp. Overlaid was an image of a woman’s slim wrist and a 2D bar code tattoo.
You’re the woman I rescued?
Yes. Hate raged through her as flickers of those final moments in the dome came to Matt. Information unfolded: The man in the Imp was her father. Both of them were HuMax subjects. She’d lived her entire life in the Union’s chill laboratory. He’d been trying to protect her as she had just been—
Matt cringed as the memories came, sharp and fast. This woman had been selected for one of the Union’s genome-rewriting projects. She’d been injected with the reverse-transcription virus, and had been unconscious until Matt had arrived.
The genome rewrite had just started. She was changing now as she hung beside him in the Demon’s magnetorheological gel.
Changing into what? Matt wondered.
Fear, overlaid with ironic mirth, was his answer.
I don’t understand, Matt told her.
I don’t know how I will change, the woman thought. The Union doesn’t give us a map to our new genetic code.
Matt bit his lip, imagining this beautiful woman turning into one of the four-armed monsters . . . or something even more terrible.
Don’t pretend to care about me, she told him.
I can’t pretend, Matt thought. This is mind to mind.
In response, he got only chill suspicion. Of course. Why should she trust him? He was Mecha Corps, in service to the Union.
Or was he? How could he say he served the Union now? He sensed this woman, this 076-50-035A—watching him, observing his reactions.
What’s your name? he asked her.
0-76-50-035A.
Don’t you have a real name? I’m Matt. Matt Lowell.
We are forbidden to use informals.
Wow. How far did they go to dehumanize them?
It’s okay, Matt told her.
You’re trying to trap me, she thought. You’ll use this in my files when you take me to another lab.
Matt laughed out loud. There’s nothing left of the lab, he told her. And I don’t have any idea where to go. Go ahead, take a look.
Matt opened his mind more fully to her. For long moments, something like a warm breeze flowed through his head. When it was done, the woman was still suspicious, but her fear had ebbed a little. She could see they were both outcasts now.
I’m Ione, she told him.
Ione who?
Ione O-3-5-A.
Matt sighed. Ione would have to do.
He glanced at the three pursuing Mechas at his back. They were closer now. The tag for the UUS Helios was still over the horizon. He hovered in between destruction by Zap Gun and destruction by heavy-matter weaponry. Unless he simply surrendered.
If you surrender, they’ll kill me.
Matt shivered. She was right. And more than likely they would kill him too. Cleaner than any court-martial. The valiant hero dying in battle, so sad.
Are there any other Union installations in this system? he asked her.
We know only the Home, Ione thought.
Matt nodded. How could she know? In any case, it was ridiculous to think there was any other place of refuge in the desolate system.
Helios popped over the horizon of Planet 5, a dark speck against the distant sun dazzle. Tags in his POV tracked the tiny dot, calling out its distance in ever-decreasing numbers. At his current speed, he’d reach it in nine minutes.
A single bright thread flashed away from the UUS Helios. Matt jumped. Was it launching missiles at him? But his forward view was clear of tags. No missiles rocketed at him; no heavy matter was coming his way.
Another tiny flash, this one brighter. Matt frowned. What was happening? Was the Helios engaging another orbital emplacement? That didn’t make sense. They’d captured those before the exercise even began. And there was no tag—
No. Wait. There was another tag in Matt’s POV. It was simply buried behind the Helios. Matt used his Enhanced Sensory Array to zoom in. The speck of the Helios grew to the size of a coin, glittering in the chill sunlight of the unnamed sun.
Off the Helios’s planetward side was another dark, lumpy disk, bristling with antennae. Its tag read DISPLACEMENT DRIVE SHIP (ORIGIN UNKNOWN, WEAPONS UNKNOWN).
Another Displacement Drive ship? Matt’s heart pounded. Was it a way out of here?
Missiles flashed from the unknown Displacement Drive ship and arced at the UUS Helios. At the same time, heavy-matter rounds from the Helios hit the Displacement Drive ship, rocking it visibly. Great gouts of gray dust fountained up from its surface. Unlike the Helios, this ship wasn’t armored—it was just a simple converted asteroid. It wouldn’t last long under the Helios’s bombardment.
Why wasn’t it Displacing out? Matt wondered.
Too old, Ione thought. Waiting to recharge.
What do you mean? You know this ship?
Called on FTLcomm. Friends finally heard us. But friends came too late.
Friends?
You know them as Corsairs, Ione told him.
A Corsair ship? Matt’s stomach turned over. Corsairs working with the HuMax? Like Rayder, all over again?
They didn’t know of us until the revolt, Ione thought. But they know of HuMax.
Matt’s Perfect Record brought back the Union records from his Merge with the computer. The HuMax had used the FTLcomm. And they’d finally reached someone.
More heavy-matter rounds hit the Corsair Displacement Drive ship. Antennae and sensors vaporized, shards sparking in the sunlight. The poor ship wouldn’t last long.
Would it last long enough to recharge its Displacement Drive and flee? That was the real question. It obviously didn’t have a fast-cycle drive like the Helios. How long did it take to recycle? The older ships could take ten or twenty minutes.
Suddenly everything was completely clear. He tucked his visor down and pushed his aft thrusters into redline, rocketing at the Corsair ship. Hopefully it would last long enough for him to arrive.
* * *
As Matt landed hard on the Corsair ship’s surface, he knew that one of two things would happen. Either his comms would light with Cruz’s icon, for one last offer. Or they’d—
HEAVY-MATTER WEAPONS TARGETING, Matt’s POV screamed, in bright red letters.
—try to blow him out of the sky.
So that’s how it is, Matt thought. The Corsair Displacement Drive ship was still intact, but it had taken heavy dama
ge. Its comms arrays were scoured off the surface, and its single heavy lock jetted wispy streamers of air.
Matt drew his Zap Gun and aimed it at the Helios.
HEAVY-MATTER WEAPONS LOCK, his POV showed.
Alarms shrilled in Matt’s ears as the Helios’s went off. For a moment, Matt actually saw the hazy dark matter, rocketing his way. He fired his Zap Gun straight into the middle of the mass.
All of space went white around him. Shock waves battered his Mecha, and he tumbled over the surface of the Corsair asteroid in a haze of dust and rock shards.
But he’d hit the heavy-matter rounds and neutralized them. His Zap Gun beam had also sliced neatly through a section of the Helios’s armor, exposing the shock-absorbing scaffolding beneath.
But now his adepts were less than a minute away from him. ANTIMATTER WEAPON TARGETING flashed from the three Union loyalists. No matter where he went, one of their guns would follow him.
Good run, almost made it, Ione thought. At the back of her mind, she imagined a future where another Union rebel like Matt actually succeeded in freeing the HuMax and getting the word out.
“No,” Matt said. He scrambled toward a deep pit in the surface and aimed his own Zap Gun at the incoming adepts. Maybe he could take one of them out—
The stars changed.
Suddenly there was no UUS Helios. No Demons. Nothing in the star-speckled sky at all.
The Corsair ship had finally Displaced.
He was safe. For now.
* * *
Matt lay on the surface of the Corsair ship for long minutes, content simply to rest for a while. The close-packed stars above were still beautiful, even if they were half covered by red REGENERATION countdowns. Ione seemed content to leave him alone as well, though her mind still swirled with undercurrents of unease.
Matt jumped when a proximity alarm flared to life. New tags floated in his POV. Three people in mismatched space suits had come out to the surface of the asteroid and were approaching his Demon cautiously.
Corsairs.
They moved in the shuffle step of people familiar with microgravity. One carried a large weapon that was longer than the person was tall. Matt wasn’t familiar with the model, but his viewmask tagged it as a PORTABLE FUSION CANNON.
That wouldn’t be good. Assuming the guy could hit him, that is. The heavy gun fought the space-suited figure’s every move. Shooting it would probably give him a one-way ticket out of the asteroid’s gravity well into deep space.
Matt pushed himself up to sit so he could get a better look at them. The three men scrambled to hide themselves behind rocky outcroppings. Matt almost laughed. They’d thought he was incapacitated.
But how was he going to talk to them? He set his comms on WIDEBANDALL and opened his mouth.
And suddenly realized: I have nothing to say. What could he possibly tell them?
Don’t shoot, I’m with you guys now?
Come on, we’re all in this together?
Take me to your leader?
Matt toggled the comms off and sat in silence as the three figures struggled with the gun.
Tell them the truth, Ione thought.
Matt sighed. She was right. He turned the mike on again and said, “This is Major Matt Lowell, former Universal Union Mecha Corps, surrendering.”
It was like taking a knife in the guts.
It’s the right thing to do, Ione thought.
And I made a vow to start doing a better job at doing the right thing, Matt thought. That didn’t mean it wasn’t painful, though.
Matt jumped when his comms crackled to life. A new comms tag showed UNKNOWNM. LOWELL.
“Major Lowell, why would we believe you?”
Matt shook his head. “Did you see any of the battle at all? The Union, coming after me? Shooting at me? I’m half-wrecked.”
“And you could still shatter this ship like a walnut if I let you in the locks.”
Matt sighed. “Who are you?”
“I’m Hector Gonsalves, captain of the independent ship El Dorado. And now that we’ve made our introductions, I’d ask you to push off into space.”
Shouts erupted behind the captain’s voice. “But it’s a Demon! Do you know what that’s worth?”
Gonsalves shouted them down.
Of course. They’d want his Mecha. What a prize for the Corsairs! He thought of telling them they could have it, then clamped his mouth shut on the words. That was stupid. That was giving away too much. But he could play on their greed.
“I protected your ship,” Matt said. “Surely that deserves some repayment, like transport back to a colonized world.”
Captain Gonsalves didn’t say anything for a long time. “I saw what you did. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t staged.”
“I risked my life to protect you!” Matt cried. “Was the Helios firing on me staged?”
More silence. Finally: “What use do we have for a Union rebel?”
Matt pushed down rising anger. Outside, on the asteroid’s surface, the man with the antimatter rifle was still trying to get it aimed at Matt. The two others struggled with him, pushing down the heavy barrel.
“You can shoot at me and lose three crew members,” Matt said. “Or you can let us in and we can talk like humans.”
“Us?” Gonsalves said. “There are multiple pilots?”
“Myself and one survivor. From the lab.”
Gonsalves swore softly, but didn’t reply. Finally: “Put him on.”
“I can’t. She’s on the emergency respirator. No comms.”
Gonsalves said nothing at first, then barked orders off-mike. The three men outside looked up, as if listening to their own comms. That made sense. Gonsalves was safe somewhere deep in the asteroid, and his crew was outside tending to the monster.
Finally Gonsalves came back on the comms. “Is the survivor HuMax?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. This is how we’ll do it, Former Major. You will proceed to the main space dock five hundred meters from your current position. My men will maintain antimatter rifle targeting on you at all times. If you do anything other than walk, slowly, I won’t hesitate to blast you out of existence. I have plenty of spacecraft to pick up my men.”
Matt did as he was told. Two of them men walked backward ahead of him, cradling the heavy rifle. One led the way, casting nervous glances back.
At the spaceship dock, the doors were warped by heat and jammed with rocks and dust. They ground only three-quarters of the way open before groaning to a halt. Matt had to duck to fit through the lock.
Inside, small spaceships of almost every imaginable type covered the walls. There were Aliancia Fuegos, Taikong X-10s, even a Union Rhino and a handful of converted freighters. All bore the Corsairs’ thousand-daggers shield. Matt stopped in the middle of the dock and waited for the doors to cycle. After an age, the battered steel doors slammed shut. Soon his external sensors showed a breathable, but thin, atmosphere.
Matt triggered the cockpit iris and surfaced, pulling off his viewmask. He helped Ione up to the top of the cockpit. She pulled off her mask and wiped the pink magnetorheological gel off her face. Blazing violet-and-gold eyes flashed at Matt.
She was down the side of the Mecha and holding on the steel scaffolding before Matt was even out of the cockpit.
The three men flanked Ione and Matt as he came to join her on the scaffolding. She stared at his white, skintight interface suit, as if seeing him for the first time. Which, he realized, she was.
A small interior air lock opened and another man floated out to greet them. He was a heavyset, dark-colored man just starting to go gray, with a small goatee of salt-and-pepper hair. He wore a sober olive green suit with no identifying badges or medals at all. He stopped five feet away from Matt and Ione and looke
d them up and down.
“Former Major Lowell?” the man asked, looking at Matt.
Matt nodded. “Captain Gonsalves?”
“Yes. I’d offer to shake hands, but let’s see where we land first.”
Matt nodded, his face heating. He bit off a sharp reply.
“And this is?” Gonsalves said, nodding at Ione.
“Oh-76-50-035A, sir!” Ione barked.
Gonsalves shook his head. “Ah, our ever-efficient Union. What did they do to you, poor girl?”
“Her name is Ione,” Matt said.
Ione looked at Matt suspiciously. He held her gaze, thinking, With me, you’re a person, not a number.
“So, what do we do now, Former Major?” he asked. “Do you swallow your pride and say, ‘I’m a Corsair now’?”
Matt ground his teeth. At that moment, he hated Gonsalves more than anything. To break it down into those terms, to make him say something like that, not knowing his past . . .
But what other choice did he have?
“I’m a Corsair now,” Matt said.
PART TWO
VILLAIN
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
—John F. Kennedy
President of the United States
“In the silence of space, we make echoing choices.”
—Petter Corolis
Union Prime (2220–2228)
Founder of the Freecycle Party
UNIVERSAL UNION EXPANSION ARCHIVES
TRANSCRIPT FILE 007-31-2673
“THE SPACE BETWEEN”—Holes in Humanity’s Empire
(Excerpted from long-form video documentary by G. James Gellschaft)
VO:
. . . whether Union or Aliancia, Taikong or Corsair, we’re all familiar with charts showing the relative cubic volumes of these domains.
(insert graphic showing Universal Union stars in blue, Taikong in red, Aliancia in green, Corsair in gray)
Looking at it this way, the Union dwarfs the rest of the interstellar governmental organizations, with over two times the volume of its closest neighbor, the Taikong Lingyo. This is especially true when we count the Union’s newest Colony-Candidate worlds.
