He had a surprising amount of bookshelves, the whole of the balcony lined with them. The bottom floor was more modest, with three couches around a stumpy table and a wide monitor against the back wall that was black at the moment. On each side of the room there was a hallway that led further into the ship. She wanted to look down the halls, but Dess was eager for her to start work as soon as possible.
“That monitor’s the problem,” Dess said. “Can’t get it workin’.”
“Is it on?” Mira asked and wandered over to the screen to look at it. The room looked much smaller once she was in it, but it was much more than her room at home could ever be.
“Not right yet,” Dess said. “I’ll go on back and turn ‘er on.”
Dess left the room and Mira looked over the monitor. It was built into the wall with no way of removing it, but there was a panel on the front that she could open. Inside was a few wires, each coated with plastic to keep from killing anyone who touched them. The cords were plugged into the monitor’s circuit, but one of the plugs had burnt out.
Maybe if you took a look at your machinery you might see what the problem is, Mira thought.
Building the proper plug would take too much time. She wandered over to one of the downstairs bookshelves, not wanting to tempt a climb up the shaky ladders to the balcony, and looked through the junk laying between the books.
She found a plug in one of the jars between some wires and bullets for an outdated kinetic pistol. Dess better be glad he’s got me around, she thought, and was about to go back to the monitor when a book title caught her eye.
“Seduced by the Valgarions?” she muttered, barely believing the title. She pulled the book out to get a better look. The cover was a man shooting a laser beam at a strange alien, while holding a blue-tinted, barely clothed woman in his arms. She flipped through a few pages and chuckled at how raunchy it was. “Must get awful lonely out there.”
She put the book back, and returned to the monitor.
It took less than a minute to rewire the new plug, and once it was in place the monitor blinked to life. Even though Benith Town, and South Port, didn’t have these types of window screens, she knew what they were for. They showed a camera feed from outside the ship to set in an atmosphere to make space less claustrophobic on long journeys. She expected to see South Port outside, but the monitor lagged and showed an earlier image. It was Nau Cedik. A green and gray marble covered with spiraling clouds and flickering storms.
Mira felt like she was in orbit. Past the curved horizon was the black void of space with white stars scattered. She tried to sit on the couch, but it was facing the wrong way and she only managed to slip down the back until she sat on the floor.
The screen flickered, going black for a second before switching to a live feed that showed South Port, just outside the ship. The image of space had only lasted a moment, but it burned into Mira’s memory like a parasite.
“Mira?”
She sat up and looked around the room. Dess was by the entrance, leaning against the doorframe. “What was wrong with it?”
Mira walked around the couch and over to him. “You really want me to try to explain’ it?”
He rolled his eyes and gestured for her to follow. They climbed over the bulkhead and were back in the entryway. Mira felt unusually melancholy as she leaned back against the front door and watched Dess. She wasn’t sure if he wanted her to leave, but she was too lonesome to be out on her own.
“Why you in South Port?” Mira asked, hoping she’d interest Dess enough that he wouldn’t tell her to leave.
“You know I do Union work a lot of the time,” he said. “Got a shipment of saplings to keep that there oak forest from getting too small.”
“For a moment I thought you were missing me or somethin’.”
“Just cause I ain’t here specifically to see you don’t mean I don’t want to see you,” he said. “Besides, knowing a good mechanic’s all kinds of useful.”
“Then take me with you,” Mira said, practically cutting off Dess mid-word.
She saw the look on Dess’s face. The same look he always had when Mira brought this up, where he’d half-close his eyes and turn his face away so he wouldn’t have to look at her.
“Mir,” he said, voice softer than usual.
“You could use a mechanic,” Mira said. She was speaking fast and her voice was high and loud. “Besides, you know how much I hate it here. You know just how much I hate being here.”
He didn’t say anything. Mira was only getting more frustrated, her breath almost to a pant. “Everything from the rain, to the people, and how they treat me,” she said. “I just don’t know what to do, and you’re the only one who can get me out of here. You know that? You’re the only one. And I just...goddamn it!”
She couldn’t say anything more. This wasn’t the first time she’d brought up leaving, but this was the first time she’d let herself go off on him.
Dess waited until she calmed down, and she was grateful for that.
“You done?”
“Yeah,” Mira said, “I’m done.”
“I only got a class three transport license,” Dess said.
“I know.”
“And that there means I can’t have no passengers, and I can’t have no crew aside myself, or I could lose my license, or my home, or both.”
“I know.”
“Then why you keep asking?”
“Because I hate it here!” Mira said. “Why can’t you get that?”
“This place ain’t so bad, Mir,” Dess said. “You don’t know enough about this system to even know what’s good or bad.
“Might be places worse,” Mira said, “but that don’t mean this place got anything good to it.”
“Food’s good,” Dess said, giving Mira a joking smile.
“Plain steak and water,” she said. “Greatest damn thing ever. You ain’t here enough to know what it’s really like. You’re all flyin’ around and seeing things and people and places. You could kill someone and they’d never know your face. Everybody here all knows me as some freak who gets in fights ‘cause she can’t control her temper. It’s hard being all riled up and they oughta know I spent my younger days in the war. It’s just hard livin’ so tight with people who hate you and not being able to go nowhere without them knowing you.”
Dess laughed. “You folks on the smaller rocks think things get better once you got more people. Like that makes you not matter or somethin’. But that’s what’s hard about life like that. You end up between all sorts of folk who look at you like a stranger. They’re all doin’ the same things you are and that makes you feel like just another rivet in the hull of a ship. Things ain’t so complicated here. You can walk up to just about anyone and they’ll know your face, or even your name. And sometimes folks’ll just come up and kick on your door and that’s somethin’ real special you can’t get nowhere else.”
Mira turned her back on him and put her hand on the scanner to open the door. The scanner flashed red, indicating a false ID.
“Mir,” Dess said.
“Just give me a hand with the door,” she said and rubbed her eye.
Dess put his hand on the scanner. The light flashed blue and the door opened. The sun was out and peering through the door, lighting up the entryway. The rain had stopped and the clouds opened up for the first time in months.
Mira stopped half way out the door, not sure if she wanted to leave Dess the way things were. The door tried to close, but Mira pushed it back open. “I just need to know,” she said. “Is it a no for now? Or a no forever?”
Dess let out his breath. The door tried to close again, but Mira wouldn’t let it.
“It’s a no for a few years. Until I can get my license extended.”
Mira stepped out and looked at Dess. She wanted to say something, but words didn’t come. The door shut and Mira felt like she’d stepped out of a different world.
She found her grounder and went back to Benith Town.
Chapter 6
Mira had gone to bed early. It wasn’t that she was tired, but that she was sick of the day and wanted it to be over, which meant she was going to sleep even if her body didn’t want it. This meant her sleep had been fragmented and forced.
During the beginning of ‘soft-night’, where there was enough light to see where you walked, but not enough to read a sheet of paper two inches from your face, she was staring at the ceiling.
It was already starting to rot. The building only had a few good years left before they’d tear it down and Mira would need to move. She rented from a young couple, taking their spare room upstairs and trying to avoid bumping into them as much as possible.
In the eleven years since the war ended, she’d lived in seven different houses, each had rotted away and been rebuilt.
You’d think they’d get the damn picture already, Mira thought and rolled over in with the blanket tucked up to her neck. People were never meant to be here. We’re meant to up there among the stars.
She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.
Just as she began to dream, the ground shook.
Mira shot out of bed in a panic. Her heart was racing. She’d never felt anything similar that before. It wasn’t like something had hit the house, or a nearby explosion. It was like the planet shifted from under her and then settled in an instant.
She threw off the covers and rushed to the window.
Something had fallen from the sky. A pillar of smoke seeped from the marsh on the other side of the oak forest. Between the smoke she saw what looked like a thin needle sticking above the tree line, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
She got dressed, putting on her denim trousers and the jacket her mother had left her. A ship must have fallen from atmosphere, Mira thought, putting on her boots and tying the tops shut with tape. But why would ships just fall like that?
She hesitated towards the door, hand resting against the latch. If a threat has been made against a Union planet, then we need to protect it, Mira remembered. The Union officer had said there was a threat.
“Ships fall from the sky when they’re shot at,” she whispered and rushed over to her dresser. Most of what was in there was spare parts from ships, and weapons, and machinery, but under all that was her EG-pack. The same one she had built all those years ago when the Union attacked Benith Station. The weapon had been repaired and improved over the years to the point where Mira was unsure if there was a single part left over from the original kit, but it still had the same memories attached.
The pack was bulky and heavy. The power converter had been replaced with one from an old transport. It was size of a one-handed weapon but she needed two hands to hold it up.
She put the battery pack to her belt left side and the gun itself on her right, with the two being connected by a spiral wire.
Most of Benith Town had gone outdoors. People in their night-gowns stepping out into the damp street, arms curled over their chests to keep warm. Mira was the only one fully dressed.
She stopped and watched as the marines dealt with the situation. They had split into two groups. One was keeping the civilians away from the crash site, and the others were going towards it with their kinetics drawn.
Without much thinking, Mira started walking towards the crash site. She was almost off the street when one of the marines tried to stop her. Mira tried to walk around her, but she grabbed her shoulder and made her stop.
“You’ll have to stay back, Miss,” she said. The marine was taller than Mira, and had unusually clean and unscratched compared to all the others. She had her helmet off and had short, scruffy blonde hair.
“I’m just trying to cross the street,” Mira said.
“Afraid you’ll have to keep back,” the marine said. “Might be dangerous.”
Mira opened her mouth, but her words were silenced by the sounds of gunfire. Even the marine couldn’t help but duck at the sudden noise. Mira took a few steps back, then ran past her while she was distracted. The marine again tried to stop her, but she was already too far past.
Mira ran through the alley between houses and into the oak forest. She had to know what was happening.
The gunfire was louder here. She couldn’t see through the thick of leaves and the foggy, soft-night dawn, but she heard footsteps and voices. It was a battle.
She slowed down, seeing a group of Union marines ahead of her. She was near the edge of the forest and a few dozen feet from the crash site. The marines had out their kinetics and were shooting out at something Mira couldn’t see.
Sharp kinetic pops and the flames and scorching of EG-weapons surrounded her. It felt like a dream. Something from her past that her subconscious brought up to haunt her and keep her on edge.
Smoke, flames, and fire. This was all familiar to her. She couldn’t forget that night. Her mother holding her hand as they ran through fields of flames and chose paths were the gunfire was quietest.
Mira jumped and scampered back. A spray of bullets rained against the ground where she had stood. One of the Union marines had shot at her.
Why are they shooting at me? Mira swallowed and raised her hands to show she was unarmed, but the marine only aimed his rifle again.
Mira ran and dove behind a tree as bullets sprayed across the wooden trunk. She swallowed and tried to control her breathing as she drew her EG-pack and flicked on the battery. A moment for the gun to signal on, then she shot at the marine.
Contact, but the blast only succeeded in setting his chest-plate on fire. The marine patted the fire down and called for others to assist.
“Shit,” Mira whispered and fumbled with her weapon. Her heart was racing and her fingers shaking as she flicked the battery output as high as it could go.
She aimed at the group of approaching marines and emptied half the battery in one shot. The blast spread in a streak that cut through the marines’ armor and set the forest around them ablaze. Leaves and bark caught fire instantly.
The nearby groups of marines scattered as the flames grew and spread to more and more trees.
She holstered her weapon and looked around her, seeing the fire circling around and caging her in.
“Okay Mira,” she said, trying to keep herself from panicking. The fire was everywhere. She looked around, trying to find the spot with the least amount of flames. “Just gotta make it through the field of fire. Ain’t a problem.”
She jumped up and down, trying to catch a nerve. Her eyes darted around until she saw the perfect clearing. A spot between trees where the flames were only inches off the ground. “Now!”
Mira ran as quick as she could. She wasn’t sure which way she was going, but anywhere out of the forest was good enough for her. The flames swept around her. Heat lapping at her face and arms. She couldn’t breathe from the heat she kept sucking into her lungs. The normally humid air was dry and brittle. She pulled the neck of her shirt over her face, trying to keep some of the heat out, but she couldn’t run as fast with a hand up.
The forest was collapsing. Mira stopped as a tree fell in front of her. She took a few steps back, then ran and leaped over the fallen tree, feeling the flames burn at her legs.
She landed in the marsh and her boots sunk into the knee-deep water. She walked away from the forest as quick as she could, taking wide steps and trying not to get stuck in the mud.
Once she was far enough from the edge of the forest not to feel the heat, she looked in front of her. She expected a crash-site. A crater with smoldering metal and dying soldiers trying to fight back the Marines. But instead, there was a functioning machine sticking from the marsh.
Mira had to strain her neck to see the top of it. It looked like a syringe sticking from the ground. A large circular platform raised a few feet off the water, with steps going up the sides, and a round room in the center with a giant needle-point sticking up into the sky. It hadn’t landed easy. Almost like it fell straight from the sky. A large crater was around it with the mars
h water pouring in.
The ground beneath her was vibrating. She had no way to confirm it, but she knew the cause was the structure. The needle part swayed and swelled, like something inside was spinning. Mira drew her EG-pack and held it up, even if it did heat up from being on, and approached the crash site.
The structure was cluttered with soldiers. Not Union marines, but rogues from another army. They had basic armor, EG-packs, and kinetic weapons, and seemed to be defending rather than attacking. They wore a mishmash of casual clothes and armor, and some not even the armor.
Mira wasn’t the only one going to the needle. The rogues were standing guard outside, while others were rushing to and from. They weren’t Union, Mira could tell you that, but they were well armed. Union soldiers had already taken at assaulting the structure. Shooting with EG-packs, and kinetics, but neither breaching the hull of it.
What are they doing? Mira thought. She stepped onto the platform and up the steps. That officer had said there was a threat, but Benith Town had nothing worth attacking.
From above, she heard the swelling of an engine. The same sound that Dess’s ship made when it took off. Mira looked up and saw a shuttle approaching. Small, with a flat back with lights coming off it. The thrusters on the side swiveled the same as Dess’s ship, yet were small and shot concentrated beams. It set down on the platform, wobbling and landing on a corner before the rest of it settled down.
The engines calmed, but still rumbled.
It sat there like a small cabin, barely fitting on the platform as the back hatch opened into a ramp for the opening. Out came a woman. Tall and skeletal. She had a stride to her walk and her eyes focused on where she was going, never looking around. Her hair had been shaven off, making her face sharp and determined, and she only wore the simplest of clothes and had no weapons on her.
One of the rogues grabbed Mira by the shirt and yanked her back. Mira thought he was trying to hurt her, but he was only trying to put her in line with the rest of them. All the rogues in the area were lined against the wall and at attention as the woman descending from her shuttle and walked into the circular room without even giving them a glance. Following her were two guards and a young lady who looked too well kept to be in a place like this.
Cast of Nova Page 5
