False Horizons

by CJ Birch

He scrunches up his face and scrubs his hand over it, scratching at his patchy beard. “No. We have backup systems for all of those.”

  “Then we have to jettison.”

  I can almost hear the expletive on the tip of Hartley’s tongue. But he doesn’t say it. Instead, I get those puppy-dog eyes.

  Chapter Two

  Jordan

  There are worse ways to die than a blaster to the face. It’s quick and painless. At least I hope it is.

  This particular blaster is silver with a pulsing yellow strip down the length. And even though it’s less than four inches from my nose, I can still see what must be the charge indicator. It’s full. Not that I was worried.

  Fuck.

  I’ve had better days, which is a nice way of saying this has turned into a real shit show. There’s a low grunt beside me. And that would be the reason I’m in this predicament. I guess not that but who.

  I risk a glance at my periphery and see the asshole isn’t even going to be awake to see me shot point-blank in the face.

  I’m on my knees with my hands tied behind my back. I woke up this way and have no idea how I arrived here. The bulky creature in front of me has all my attention. The darkness in the room makes it difficult to tell who or what is shoving their blaster in my face, only that they smell. It’s like being in the middle of a cow pasture back on Delta, where I grew up.

  Delta’s where we kept the farms for the Belt. Cow manure and fertilizer is a hard smell to get rid of. Eventually you can’t remember any other smell. And they say only when you leave it do you realize you miss it. I’ve never missed this odor. To me it smells like defeat. It smells like starvation. You spend all your waking hours growing and harvesting and caring for all this food, and by the time it leaves on the maglevs, you’re left with just enough to watch your family starve to death. And that’s if the backbreaking work doesn’t kill you first. But I guess it’s better than Eps. Working in the mines is worse. Much worse. And if I hadn’t grown up on Delta, if my mom hadn’t sacrificed herself, I’d have grown up with the asshole next to me. A Burr. A space pirate. My father. The man who used me as a hostage and then shot us out of my own damn ship in an escape pod.

  I’d never been so afraid in my life, watching the Persephone shrink and then disappear in the blink of an eye. I don’t remember much after that. And now I’m here, wherever the fuck here is.

  Maybe it’s for the best. But then I think of Ash. She’ll never know what happened, and I don’t think I can live with that. She better come get us. But a more logical part of me hopes she stays far away. Chances are their fate will be the same as ours. As I stare into the darkness I worry about what will happen to the Posterus. Forty-five thousand humans on board are waiting to start a journey to their new home. They may not end up where they intended since we ended up in this unknown solar system. But as we’ve already discovered, there are inhabitable planets. They just have to find one that isn’t occupied and settle down.

  The bulky creature in front of me shifts the blaster to his other hand as he speaks into the sky above him. At first I think he’s talking to us, but he’s turned away, and then I realize I can understand what he’s saying. How do they speak English? I take advantage of the break in his attention to look down at Sarka, still sprawled on—is that grass?—still unconscious. I’d head-butt him, but I’m sure that would return the attention to me. I don’t want someone with a weapon aimed at my head worried I’m becoming violent.

  The lights snap on. I actually hear the crackle as they illuminate, and my breath grinds to a halt. The room is cavernous, the ceiling’s a couple kilometers high. And I thought the Posterus was big. It’s a minnow compared to this thing. You could fit ten of the Posterus in this room alone, never mind the rest of the ship. If it wasn’t for the telltale hum—something no good ship’s captain could miss—I’d have thought we were on a planet.

  This must be where they grow their food. It’s humid, and that is definitely some sort of grass covering the floor. Each side has towers of panels, similar to our living walls on the Posterus, but the vegetation is strange, and it’s organized better. Each crop has its own tower.

  The smell is beginning to make sense, and not only because we’re in a pasture. The figure in front of me looks like a cow, if they could stand on two legs. His nose is large, taking over almost a third of his lower face, and his nostrils flare as he breathes. He’s still speaking to some unknown I can’t hear or see, his attention drawn to the ceiling. His arms sport dark, luscious hair.

  I shift, testing my bonds, but his attention isn’t as diverted as I thought. His eyes swing back to me in an instant, and the blaster gets closer to my nose, if possible.

  His squat form—he’s only about an inch or so taller, and I’m on my knees—nears, like he’s trying to loom over me. He might not have me in height, but there’s nothing weak about his body. He’s like a thick, heavy brick—if bricks were made of fur and muscle.

  He’s agreeing reluctantly with someone on the other end of his communications. He snorts and turns to me. “You with the illya?”

  My mouth drops open like a landed fish. I understood what he said, which is surprising in itself, but not what it meant. “I don’t…I’m with the Union fleet.”

  “The what?” His voice is deep, almost like I can feel it instead of hear it. “She said Union fleet. That mean anything to you?” He waits, and I realize he’s not talking to me anymore. “I’ll give ’em this. They don’t look like illya. They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before. You want me to toss ’em, roast ’em, initiate, or what?”

  None of those options sounds promising. I risk another look down at Sarka. Still unconscious, which means I’m on my own, but what else is new? I twist my fingers around, feeling for some way to release my hands. If I can get free, I can even the odds a bit. Whatever has me tied is fluid. It’s slippery, and every time I try to feel for some sort of edge, it slips out of my grasp.

  And then just like that, I find myself in the unlikely position of asking what Ash would do in this situation. She’d probably charge the guy when he was looking away. And for some reason, it would work. But I’ll be dead before I even get up my nerve.

  “All right. If that’s the way you want to do it.” He taps something on his neck, and his focus is back on me. My heart hammers so fast and loud I’m surprised Sarka hasn’t woken up.

  “So,” he says to me. “What the flip is Union fleet? You guys military of some sort?” He jabs a large boot in Sarka’s ribs. “Looks like a dud if he is.” He turns back to me, all teeth. They’re big and shiny and could probably take a chunk of my arm off.

  “How is it I can understand you? You speak English?”

  He frowns, bringing large bushy eyebrows together. “English? No.” He taps the side of his head. “We got translators. They analyze your speech and then project the correct language in your head. To me, it sounds like you’re speaking Varb.”

  “Like a Babel fish?”

  His eyes go wide. “A what?”

  I shake my head. “Never mind. It’s something from…It’s a yellow fish you stick in your ear that translates for you.”

  “You have talking fish? Why would you stick them in your ears?”

  “No.” I shake my head again. “It’s from a story.” I wonder if they even have stories, which is silly. What culture doesn’t have its own stories? “It’s not real.”

  He levels his blaster at my forehead. “So. Union fleet.”

  My mind goes blank. I have no idea how to explain us, our mission, how we managed to get God knows how many trillions of miles from our own solar system. I don’t even know where the fuck we are, let alone how to explain it to this guy. Should I mention Sarka taking me hostage, or will that complicate matters more? I need to get back to the Persephone, and I need this guy on my side to do it.

  “If I had to categorize us, I’d say we are the exploration division of a generational ship on its way to find a new home for our species.” There.
That’s mostly true. When the Persephone joined this mission, it ceased being a part of Union fleet since we left the fleet along with the Union behind on the Belt—the asteroid belt humans call home. The less this guy thinks we’re military, the better.

  “And who’s this guy?” He nudges Sarka, who turns over. I notice he’s also bound at his wrists.

  “My pilot.”

  The guy snorts. “Some pilot. He almost rammed into our aft engine. If we hadn’t picked you up when we did, you’d be ash floating through the stars.” He waves his blaster, indicating our surroundings. “Lucky you ended up here.” He toes the grass at his feet. “Emergency extraction can be tricky. We once had a guy end up in the waste system. Knee-deep in other people’s shit. Not exactly a hard landing, but whoo-eee. I’d rather land anywhere but there.”

  “We were in an escape pod. There’s no navigation, only propulsion.”

  “An escape pod?” Those bushy eyebrows do another dance. “Who you escaping?”

  “It was a mistake. I need to get back to my ship. It can’t be far. It’s orbiting the nearby planet.”

  A booming laugh escapes from him. “A planet? Is this like your Babel fish? Another story? This system doesn’t have any planets.”

  I’m speechless. What the fuck were we stuck on for the last four days? I flash to a group of avians sprinting toward Ash and me as we run toward an impossible cliff. I didn’t imagine jumping off and crashing through a kilometer of tree branches. My shoulder where the avian pierced me with his claw definitely remembers. There’s no way the pod could make it out of the system. We’d have died a million times over before that happened.

  I have more than an urge to kick Sarka awake now.

  “Look, I don’t know how else to explain it. One minute my ship was there, the next it wasn’t. But I swear, there is a planet not far from here. How else do you explain an escape pod in the middle of nowhere? Those things have the range to help you leave an exploding ship, but that’s about it.” I readjust myself so I’m looking in his eyes. My knees are starting to hurt. “We just need help getting back to our ship.”

  He snorts. A small dribble of snot rolls out of his nostril. He wipes it with his forearm, smearing snot into his hair. “The one orbiting that planet no one can see but you swear is around here somewhere? What do you take us for? If you’re not working for the illya, then you’ve escaped from one of their ships, and there is no way, honey, I’m going to let you go blabbing about our setup.”

  It’s the second time he’s mentioned that word. “The illya? I don’t know what that is.”

  “Doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve been instructed to pull you into intake. I really hope you like it here ’cause you ain’t going nowheres anytime fast.”

  “You haven’t even mentioned where we are.”

  “Any rule says I have to?” He jiggles the blaster. “I’m the one with the weapon pointed at your head. Means I make the rules.” He kicks Sarka in the ribs. “Rise and shine, sweetheart. Time to go.” Sarka grunts but doesn’t move. The man hooks his boot under Sarka and flips him over. A large black burn mark covers his lower abdomen.

  “You shot him.” I try to scoot closer and assess the damage but lose my balance and fall sideways. The man grips my arm and hauls me to my feet.

  “Relax. He’ll be fine. The worst he’ll get is a bruise that takes a while to go away.”

  Standing at my full height, I tower over him. His glance roams the length of my body. “You looked tall. But wow, I’ve never actually seen anyone as tall as you. Are all your people like that?”

  He’s obviously never met the avians who inhabit our mysterious planet. They’re two feet taller than me. The man with the blaster reaches below my shoulders, but I have no illusions about his strength. He might not be tall, but he could take even the strongest of our species, even without a blaster.

  “Where the fuck are we?” Sarka’s eyes are finally open. He still looks out of it. His black hair, which is usually slicked back, is a mess, and his pale skin is even more taut than usual.

  “You’re in luck, good sir.” The man helps Sarka sit up. “We pulled you from your crash course into our engines, and you are now about to be recruited into the Varbaja.” His voice is chipper, like this is good news. I have a feeling it’s more like being drafted into a war you had no intention of ever fighting. “Your day could not be going any better.”

  Sarka looks up at me as if I have a better answer for him. I shrug. He’s lucky I don’t kick him. If he hadn’t taken me hostage on his suicide mission, I’d be back on the Persephone preparing to head back to the Posterus. I keep my lips shut. Now is not the time to get into it. If we’re going to make it off this ship alive, we have to keep our heads.

  Sarka grunts like an old man as he raises himself to a standing position. The recruiter’s eyes go big as he looks at the mountain of a man standing in front of him. Sarka is at least five inches taller than I am.

  “Wow. They really do make ’em big where you guys come from. That can come in handy.” He pokes Sarka in the ribs. “Now come on. They want to turn the lights back off so the npua can go back to sleep.” He waves to several small animals grazing by a stack of pink flowers. They’re covered in dark-gray hair matted at the end, and their ears are long and thin, hanging over their eyes.

  A thought occurs to me. I turn to Sarka. “You didn’t really plant bombs on my ship, did you?”

  He looks at me and shrugs. “Oops.”

  Chapter Three

  Ash

  I’ve been in charge of the Persephone for less than a day, and already I have a potential mutiny on my hands.

  I’m sitting alone in the dark on the bridge. Everyone else is restricted to their cabins until we can figure out how to get some of our more crucial systems back online. Hartley assures me it’s possible, but it’ll take time.

  I should be thinking about how to get this ship back in working order, but my mind is full of Jordan. Those last fifteen minutes have been looping in my brain for hours. Could I have done anything so she was here now?

  Those escape pods have only so much oxygen, enough to last two days at most. Less with Sarka. And instead of getting out there and looking, we’re stuck here with no way to move this damn ship.

  Less than a day in charge and I’ve crippled the ship, doomed the crew, and lost their captain.

  We’ve removed all the bombs on the ship. The only critical bomb was the one attached to the main computer. The rest were distractions. I’ve got to hand it to Sarka—he knows how to make a getaway. With the ship crippled, we won’t be going anywhere until Hartley can rig a new computer to replace the previous one. A quantum computer that can handle trillions of simultaneous functions at the same time. As Hartley explained it, that’s like asking third-graders to build a fifty-foot bridge with pipe cleaners and ribbon. It can be done, but it’ll take a hell of a lot of time. Probably years, which we don’t have.

  In the right corner of the main observation port, a tiny burst of light ignites. Here and gone in a flash. And that’s the end of our main computer. I lean my head back against the headrest and stare up at the ceiling. It’s eerie in the dark. The only light comes from a far-off sun through the bow porthole, which takes up most of the front wall. All the consoles stand dark and silent. The silence gets to me most, though. You don’t realize how accustomed, how reliant you are on those sounds until they’re gone. With nothing to fill the empty space, my head overflows with dark thoughts.

  What if they do mutiny? Maybe it would be better. Anyone in charge would be better than me, especially after what Dr. Prashad told me.

  I fiddle with the tablet wedged between my leg and the command seat. I haven’t had the guts to read Dr. Prashad’s diagnosis all the way through. He presented it to me earlier, and I still have no idea what to think.

  I’d gone down to the med center to discuss any casualties we’d suffered. Besides Yakovich’s leg and a few other minor injuries, the crew was in pretty good shape.r />
  “I wanted to speak with you about something else too.” The doctor passes me a tablet and crosses his arms. “There never seems a good time for this.” I swear he’s frightened. I’ve never seen him so nervous to share information.

  “What is it?” I stare at the tablet in my hand, afraid to swipe it on.

  He runs his hand over the tablet I’m holding. I read the first few lines but am not sure what I’m reading.

  He points to the tablet. “I encourage you to pay attention to everything I’ve collected. The information will be helpful for treatment.”

  I look down at the first paragraph, and one word jumps out at me. “Bipolar?”

  “Over the last two months I’ve observed behavior in you I believe is consistent with—”

  “You’re saying I’m bipolar?”

  He guides me to a chair and nudges me to sit. I sink into the cushion, still clutching the tablet.

  My mouth opens but I’m stunned. I sit there for a few seconds, mute, thinking over what he’s said. The word bipolar conjures up all sorts of negative things. Crazy. He thinks I’m crazy.

  He takes a seat on the bed next to me and rests a hand on my forearm. “You’re not crazy.” It’s uncanny how he can read me sometimes. “This is nothing to be ashamed of or worried about. It’s a lot to digest, I know. I want you to take your time with it and not jump to conclusions.” He points to the tablet gripped in my hand. “You’ll find information about your condition as well as the medication I’m putting you on. Before you judge anything, I want you to ask yourself how you dealt with stress this past week. I want you to assess your sleeping patterns over the last few days.” He stands. “And in a few weeks I want you to reassess. I think you’ll find a big difference. If you have any questions, come see me.”

  “Why is this coming up now? Why hasn’t anyone figured this out before?” How did it go unnoticed for so long?

  He shrugs. “This isn’t an exact science. There’s no blood test. Every case is a little different. The dose I’ll put you on is very mild, and I’m sure we’ll see an improvement.”