Shattered Lamps (Osprey Chronicles Book 2)

by Ramy Vance

  She looked down to see warm steam from the shower curling up from her exposed skin.

  “This?” she giggled. “Think I’m steaming mad, do you?”

  “INcreased BOdy TEMPerature is ASSociated with DIstress in HUmans, is it not?”

  Jaeger fell back into her bed, laughing. This fit of trembling seemed to perturb Kwin all the more, and he hopped restlessly from foot to foot. “Are you in need of MEdical ASSistance?”

  She realized he’d never seen her laugh before and had to stop herself from laughing even harder.

  “Nah.” She grinned. “I think I’ll be fine. Thank you for asking, though.”

  Kwin stood, his mandibles idly clicking as he regarded her. Jaeger thought the gesture might be the equivalent of a human drumming his fingers while he worked through a particularly difficult math problem.

  “I promise,” she added. “I’m fine. I’m…I’m more than fine. Can we get started?”

  “If you are CERtain you are well.”

  “I am.”

  “VEry well.”

  Kwin began to hum.

  It was the last soothing thing Jaeger heard for a very long time.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Toner drifted in the center of the fighter bay, hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the crewmen assembled on the catwalk. He shifted his mass from one leg to another, pressing against the tension of his mag soles to keep himself bobbing in the center of the chamber.

  For recreation purposes, Toner had moved the Osprey’s only extant fighter—the Alpha-Seeker—to the shuttle bay and had the maintenance droids disassemble and remove the empty fighter docking cradles.

  The empty fighter bay was about the size of a large gymnasium and featureless, save for the narrow catwalk ringing the open space.

  About half of the crew had shown up—better than he had expected. Everyone who wasn’t either sleeping or actively on duty had responded promptly to his invitation to play. It made him wonder if they didn’t quite understand the difference between an invitation from a CO and an order to show up and have fun.

  He considered reminding them all that they weren’t slaves.

  Then he didn’t because he needed all the players he could get.

  “Right,” he called. “I know you’re all trained in basic use of antigrav, but anybody who got any advanced classes downloaded into their brains, join me up here. Occy, you too. You’ve had a lot of practice. It’s fine.”

  There was a moment of shuffling, then Portia, Aquila, Canin, and Horus, the new xenobiologist, detached from the catwalk and floated up to join Toner. Occy followed, though when one of his tentacles brushed across Horus’s arm, the boy turned beet red and mumbled an apology, drawing his tentacles tightly around himself.

  “Sweet,” Toner said. “We’ll split the advanced users across two teams to make things fair. Aquila and Canin, you’re with me on A-team. Occy, Portia and Horus, you’re on B-team. Now we’re gonna take turns picking the newbies. Got it?”

  After a quick group huddle, Occy nodded. They spent the next few minutes sorting the nervous newbies into the two teams. As each new player detached from the catwalk and drifted up to join their team, Toner handed them a pair of slender bracelets. To the B-team members, he also gave a blue sash that he’d made from torn lengths of old blue jumpsuits.

  “Skins versus sashes,” Toner said, once they’d settled the teams. “No, no, Bufo. It goes around the chest, not around the neck. Jeez, man, you’ll get garroted that way.”

  Someone let out a bark of surprise and Toner turned to see Canin holding his two bracelets in open palms. The others members of A-team left him in the middle of a big, empty ring.

  “They shocked me!”

  Toner rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, sorry, I’m still working out the kinks. Everybody, be careful not to clap your bracelets together too hard. You might make them arc. The amplitude isn’t enough to hurt anybody, but I guess it’s startling. You, uh, okay buddy?”

  Canin blinked, then shook himself and nodded.

  “Great.” In a show of good faith, Toner lifted his hands and demonstrated snapping one bracelet over each wrist. “So. The name of the game is team freeze tag. If you’re on the defending team and someone on the offensive team tags you, the bracelets will freeze you in position.

  “We’re gonna flip a coin to see which team gets to play offense first. We put two minutes on the clock. The offense team’s job is to get everybody on the defense team frozen at the same time before the clock runs out. They do that, and boom, they get a point. Then we switch roles and do it again. First team to earn five points wins. Got it?”

  The crew exchanged puzzled glances. A few people nodded.

  “No!” Toner barked. “You don’t got it. Because I didn’t finish. Virgil. Pull up the resurrection zone, please.”

  The overhead hologram generator flared to life, and a glowing cube about two meters to the side appeared on the far end of the bay.

  “Will you need anything else?” Virgil asked with a heavy sigh.

  “Uh, no?” Toner shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. I’m very busy.”

  “Defenders!” Toner rounded on the crew. “If your teammate is frozen, you can punt his ass back to your resurrection zone, and he’ll get un-frozen. Here’s where it gets good. After a defender gets un-frozen, he gets a five-second grace period where he can’t be frozen again. And he can freeze offensive players. You’ll all know when that’s happening—the bracelets will glow really bright.”

  Toner paused, letting this sink in.

  “Then offensive players can un-freeze their team, too?” Portia asked.

  “Nope,” Toner said happily. “They’re out for the rest of the round. So that’s pressure on the offensive team not to get lazy.”

  Everyone exchanged puzzled glances. “I’ve never heard of this ruleset,” Horus said pensively.

  “That’s because I made it up today. It’s a brave new world. We’re making up new games. It’ll probably take a few seasons to get the rules all ironed out, but today, this is the set we’ll play. Any questions?”

  The teams conferred briefly.

  Toner heard the catwalk creak and turned to see Baby launch herself off the catwalk and soar lazily toward them.

  Toner held up a stopping hand. “Not right now, fartface. You can have open swim in here when we finish.”

  “Why can’t Baby play?” Occy’s voice was low and hinted at a pout as he reached out and pulled himself toward the massive tardigrade.

  Toner glared but struggled for a good excuse. “Uh, the bracelets are set to freeze normal-sized people. She’s too big. They won’t work on her.”

  “Then make her some stronger freeze-bracelets,” Occy said inflexibly.

  Toner sighed and rubbed his temples.

  Aquila leaned over to mutter something in Occy’s ear, and the boy straightened, suddenly animated. “Okay.” He nodded sharply. “Yeah, that’s good, too.” He cupped his hand over his mouth and shouted to Toner. “Baby gets to fly around the outside and try to keep frozen people from smashing into the walls until you get bracelets made for her. Deal?”

  Toner rolled his eyes and turned to face the teams. “Anyone object to maybe getting rescued by a farting nightmare hippo?” He held up a hand, quickly adding, “I’ve been there—let me say, I’d rather smash into a wall.”

  Baby let out a low, rumbling growl.

  “Let’s let her try,” Bufo suggested, keeping his tone diplomatic. “We’re experimenting with rules, right? Besides.” Bufo cast Toner a furtive glance. “We’re not all as durable as you, sir.”

  A few of the others nodded.

  “Point,” Toner conceded. “All right. Baby, take up patrol along the walls. Punt back anybody who’s about to crash.”

  Baby’s low growl rumbled up into a chirrup. She turned and flew off toward the far wall.

  “Fab.” Toner clapped once. “Now. Who brought a coin?”


  When Jaeger had told Toner he was responsible for organizing team-building exercises, he’d carefully weighed the pros and cons of many different sports. Zero-G soccer. Zero-G polo. Zero-G ultimate Frisbee. He’d even taken a good hard look at the rules of Quidditch.

  While they all had their strengths and sounded like great fun, Toner had settled on his conception of freeze tag for one very simple reason.

  He wanted an excuse to fling people across the fighter bay.

  “Heads up!”

  Bufo, who had been tagged and paralyzed in a near-fetal huddled position that must have been uncomfortable, blinked wide, terrified eyes as he saw Toner zipping close. “Oh gods,” he murmured.

  Toner grinned as he hooked a long arm around the crook of Bufo’s legs. “If you keep making that face, it’ll get stuck that way.”

  He ducked as Portia zipped by overhead, feeling the splay of her fingers brush through his hair. While the spider-woman struggled to change her direction, Toner flung himself against a wall for support. Spinning Bufo like a discus, he released. He watched, satisfied, as the beefy little man rocketed across the field, wailing like a deflating balloon. Canin and Pandion had to scramble out of his way to avoid being the pins in this particular bowling game.

  Toner felt a hand press, almost gently, across his shoulder. An arc of electricity sprang across his bracelets, making him go rigid.

  “Tag,” Portia murmured in his ear. She drifted between the wall and his frozen body. Her tiny mouth bowed into a malevolent smile. “Got you, Commander.”

  “Worth it,” Toner forced through his frozen lips, as across the bay, Bufo finally soared through the glowing cube of light.

  The fighter bay lights flashed. A brief trill of old electronic music played—and suddenly Bufo was glowing like the sun, his powerful legs kicking beneath him as he soared back into the fray.

  In Toner’s ear, Portia laughed. It was a modest sound, reserved but pure. Toner watched her out of the corner of his eye, curious, as his truncated momentum pulled him away from her.

  “Mario Brothers?” he asked, almost hoping that she was laughing because she recognized the old tune.

  Portia cast him a puzzled glance, and he saw that the reference meant nothing to her.

  She twisted away from him. Like the spider she was named after, she crawled up the wall, the tips of her gloved fingers barely brushing the steel.

  Exo-gloves for grip, Toner noted. Good trick. He lost sight of the slender pilot as he bobbed toward the wall.

  Something gray and big and getting bigger filled his view.

  Baby barreled forward, trumpeting sounds that could have been either joy or rage at the sight of him.

  “Oh no.”

  He had no way to brace himself before Baby slammed into him, sending him bouncing back toward the center of the field, spinning like a top, and floating in a cloud of her methane propulsion system.

  “You’re a whole team by yourself!” Canin doubled over, hysterical with laughter. Occy, resting primly on the catwalk beside him, turned an interesting shade of pink, self-consciously drawing his tentacles close to himself as if hoping they would rise and swallow him.

  More of the crew laughed.

  The match had ended, and the teams drifted near the fighter bay doors, passing around ice packets and painkillers. Canin had a bloody nose. Bufo’s left eye was swelling shut with a bruise.

  They were all grinning.

  “Only on offense,” Occy said shyly, his head bowed. “It’s really not fair at all. You all only have two arms to tag with, and they’re all a lot shorter than mine.”

  Aquila let out a shrill bark of pain as Pandion popped her dislocated shoulder back into place. Then, quickly forgetting the pain, she shook her head. “Never apologize for your strengths,” she said gravely.

  “No, no,” Bufo bustled, folding his arms. “The chief engineer has a point. As long as each of his limbs has freeze-powers, I can’t imagine his team could ever fail to win a point when they’re on offense. When he stretches out, he turns half the field into a deathtrap. He doesn’t even have to chase anybody. They’ll fly into him by accident.”

  “It has its drawbacks too. He’s a huge target when he’s on defense.” Toner drained his blood substitute pouch dry and let the deflated bag drift in the air. He sucked his teeth thoughtfully.

  “His unusual physiology creates an interesting foil in the game mechanics,” Portia agreed.

  Toner nodded. “It’s a pickle. Obviously, there’s only one solution.”

  The crew turned, watching him. Occy glanced up, lashes fluttering shyly.

  Toner clicked his heels together, activating his mag soles. He settled onto the catwalk with a gentle thunk.

  He’d done his job. The crew was hanging out, chatting, laughing, downright giddy even as they tended their wounds. Although he was exceedingly pleased with himself and riding a post-workout high, he was also tired in a way he wasn’t used to feeling. The chattering of the crew as they socialized sounded great, but for once, Toner thought the beckoning silence of the empty corridors sounded better.

  “We’re gonna have to keep play-testing,” he said. “Tomorrow. Same time, same place. I’m gonna set up a rotating crew schedule so anyone who wants a chance to play can play. Goodnight, y’all. I’m…” He hesitated as the door sensed his approach and slid open behind him.

  Aw hell, he thought. Just say it.

  “I’m proud of you.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Jaeger had seen this before. A dozen times, a hundred times, a thousand times.

  She’d seen it on a display screen in her bunk, projected in two inadequate dimensions. She’d seen it in a mirror, distantly, experienced like a pain in a phantom limb.

  Not this time.

  This time, she felt the porch swing swaying beneath her. She felt the squish of cheap, floral-printed foam cushions. She felt the pattern of wicker digging into her back through the thin fabric of her sundress.

  This time, the haunting video journal fragment had inverted itself and climbed into her head, sharpened and focused through the lens of recovered memory.

  She wanted to weep.

  She felt the heavy weight of a child’s body in her arms, warm and breathing and wiggling with laughter as the last breathless verse of their favorite song faded into the twilight.

  She remembered that no breeze blew across this old farmhouse porch. No wind swung the tire dangling from the nearby pecan tree.

  The sky stretched on forever, cloudless and dotted with emerging stars, and yet the air was somehow stale.

  Oh God.

  No. Don’t remember this.

  You don’t want to remember this.

  The memory rushed forward, as implacable as the tide.

  Kwin. God damn you, Kwin. We should have put an emergency stop button on this thing.

  She remembered running her hands through the thick ringlets of the little girl’s hair. For the first time, too, she remembered looking up and seeing the recorder and the cameraman standing behind it.

  “You guys are so corny.” The man spoke with the faintest hint of an accent. He chuckled. He was slender and tall, olive-skinned, with sharp features. He wore a strange jumpsuit, a little too fine and well-fitted to be coveralls meant for mucking out a barn.

  Cole. Jaeger’s heart cracked. She wanted to reach out, take the man, kiss his hand. She ached to kiss the simple wedding band wrapped around his finger, the gold counterpart to the silver ring on her hand, but she couldn’t.

  Because in real life, in real memory, that’s not what happened.

  “Call it corny if you want.” She grinned, tipped her head back, and trilled in a high, sweet voice that echoed, then fell strangely flat against the night’s sky. “But baby, you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone!”

  Cole lowered the recorder, laughing as he shook his head.

  This was where the video journal cut off. This was where Jaeger plunged forward, into the dreadful unknown.
>
  The dreadful known but forgotten.

  “Mom?”

  Jaeger turned, her movements suddenly slow and sticky as she pulled Sim into a huddle. “Yeah, honeyboo?”

  The little girl pressed her head into Jaeger's chest, flushing warmly before going on. “Are we gonna see Aunt Petie again?”

  “Yeah. She’ll be there at departure tomorrow morning. You’ll be able to say bye to her, too.”

  “You are gonna stay together, right?”

  “Yeah, baby. Me and your auntie. We’re gonna go off exploring the stars.” She swept her arm, making a grand gesture across the frozen twilight. Then she collapsed forward, kissing Sim on the tip of the nose, making the little girl flush even darker. “We’re gonna find you a new home.”

  No, a little voice cried from somewhere deep inside Jaeger. Let this be it. Let it end. Let it be enough.

  Maybe it wasn’t a true memory returning, she told herself.

  Maybe she dreamed the slam of the farmhouse door. Maybe she only dreamed the six soldiers spilling onto the porch, their fatigues stiff and heavy, their boots thumping against weathered wood, their visors dark to obscure their faces.

  In her lap, Sim shrieked with surprise, but not horror. Her little hands gripped Sarah’s collar and yanked, holding her mom close.

  “What is this?” Cole demanded, fumbling to pick up his recorder. “We have thirty minutes left on the simul—”

  “Sarah Jaeger?” One of the soldiers stepped forward, grabbing her bare arm in rough gloves. “Come on. It’s time.”

  “What the hell? No, you’ve made a mistake—Hey, get your fucking hands off me!”

  “Hang on!” Cole bustled forward, lost in the sea of soldiers separating him from his family. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “The orders came up sooner than expected,” the lead soldier growled, pulling Jaeger from the porch swing with a painful wrench. “We’re shipping out. Now.”