That Distant Dream

by Laurel Beckley

  “It’ll be okay,” she whispered, brushing their hair with her free fingers.

  Their mouth opened and closed, and their free hand fluttered weakly, pointing behind her before falling to their side. Melin turned, scanning the office, coming up with nothing, gaze skipping over the windows and the far corner away from the burned map. She’d cleared the room. There was no one but them.

  Ravi’s mouth opened and closed some more times. The light dimmed from their eyes.

  Melin pressed a bloody fist to her forehead, struggling to stay in the present by focusing on what had killed Ravi instead of the dead body right before her instead of the blood on her hands and the feeling of guilt. She was missing something. She had the nagging feeling she’d overlooked an important clue.

  Trudi.

  She hadn’t seen her friend in the safe room with the others. The quartermaster’s doors instantly locked sometimes when tech was down, and while there was a key, sometimes the lock didn’t work. Someone had killed Ravi, and they were still out there.

  Melin stood, releasing Ravi’s lifeless fingers and arranging them across their chest.

  Herring returned, staring in shock at what had to have been his first dead body.

  “Stay here,” Melin said. “I’ve got to go to the quartermasters. I don’t remember seeing Sera Wu at the conference room.”

  He nodded blankly, and she darted past him, dodging around a panting soldier carrying a first aid kit—the medic, too late now—and running down the ramp, ducking around soldiers who had begun to return to the embassy.

  She reached the closed door of the quartermaster’s office in record time. Locked. She tried her key. The locked turned, but the door didn’t budge. Something was wedged against it. Someone was in there. Someone had barricaded the door.

  “Trudi?” she called.

  No answer.

  She shoved the door with her shoulder. It moved an inch.

  “Trudi, are you okay?”

  Silence.

  With a snarl, Melin took a step back and lunged, driving a front kick that sent all her weight and force into the weakest point of the barrier. The door flew open, the heavy thing lodged against it falling to the floor with a loud crash.

  There was a surprised yelp from the inside.

  Melin scrambled over the collapsed shelving in the space of a heartbeat, skidding to a stop as Trudi came out of the office bathroom, a towel in her hands and alarm in her eyes.

  “What the fuck?” she demanded.

  “You’re all right!” Melin cried, relieved her friend was safe. “Why didn’t you answer?”

  “I was taking a piss.” Trudi eyed Melin, taking in her bloodstained pajamas with something akin to alarm. “What the hell is going on outside?”

  “The prisoner escaped,” Melin replied. “I don’t know more than that—well, someone ransacked Major Dar’Tan’s office and killed Ravi Guptraja.”

  Trudi fell heavily into her seat, towel falling onto the floor. “Fuck.”

  “Did anyone try to get in here? What’s with the barricade?” Melin looked around, realizing that aside from the mess she had made at the door, there was nothing out of place.

  “The hand-sirens went off,” Trudi replied. “Last time that happened we were under attack, so I shoved that shelf against the door and settled in with this little thing.” She pulled out a knife like Melin’s from her thigh holster. A second blade resembling a machete crossed with a butcher’s knife joined it from under her desk.

  “Tech is back up.”

  This room didn’t reek of ozone. Melin inhaled gratefully, taking in the musty odors of unwashed gear, dirt and dust.

  Trudi had a far off look on her face, her fingers pressed behind her left ear. Her mouth formed a O of surprise that had Melin immediately on edge. When she refocused, she eyed Melin carefully. “When did you leave the major’s office?”

  “Maybe five minutes ago. Why?”

  “There’s been an incident.” Trudi stared at her.

  “No shit,” Melin snapped. “Something killed Ravi.”

  “And two soldiers. Just a minute ago. The major sent up reinforcements to investigate the screams. They were found with their throats cut.”

  Melin felt like she’d been doused in cold water. “What?”

  Trudi gestured toward the knife. “Did you use that?”

  Melin glanced down. Her hands were so sticky with Ravi’s blood that the hilt had adhered to her skin, but the blade itself was clean. “No—wait, you think I had something to do with this?”

  “No,” Trudi shook her head with more force than was necessary. “I can see that thing hasn’t been used. But someone might ask.” She paused, eyes unfocusing again. “The major wants you upstairs.”

  “Of course.” Melin examined the knife in her boss’s hands. “You’ll be okay?”

  “Yeah. Go.”

  There were several soldiers on the landing to the second floor, and all of them turned to stare at her. A small crowd had gathered inside the major’s room, including Dar’Tan and Sorem.

  Melin stopped at the threshold and stared.

  Herring lay immediately inside the door, face-up. A pool of blood formed underneath him, mingling with the medic’s and Ravi’s. The bruises on his neck framed the gaping red smile slashed across his windpipe and carotid arteries. The medic was sprawled over Ravi, fingers clutching uselessly at a medpack. Her head was twisted to an unnatural angle, blood oozing from a gaping hole in the side of her neck. Her mouth hung open, face frozen in surprised pain. While Herring had possibly seen who had killed him, the medic had been blindsided.

  Dar’Tan bent over the medic, closing Ravi’s eyes before touching the scientist’s forehead in mourning. Sorem stared at the blank wall, mindlessly shaking her head.

  The major straightened when he saw Melin. Grief transitioned to anger to impassiveness in a fraction of a second. “What did you see when you were up here?”

  “I cleared this room.” She blinked, trying to shake off her disbelief. How the hell had they died? “I know I cleared it.” The office had been empty.

  Melin scanned the room. The lights were on, sending everything into macabre clarity. Aside from the bodies, nothing looked like it had moved. “Ravi was impaled. I sent Herring for a medic. I cleared the room. Ravi died. The medic and Herring came. I left to find Trudi. I-I fucking cleared this room.”

  “Grezzij. Focus. What is different?”

  Melin inhaled deeply. “The smell is gone,” she said. “And the lights.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “It smelled like—like ozone, or something foggy when Herring and I first got up here. When the tech came on, it didn’t come on in this room at all. He had to step into the hallway to message you.” Melin stared some more, noting a potted bush had been knocked over from its place in the corner near an opened window. She pointed. “And that’s different. The office was ransacked when we first came in, but that window was closed.”

  “The map is gone,” Sorem snarled.

  Melin’s head jerked toward the intelligence chief. “It was burning but I stopped the fire—it should be draped over that table. Maybe it fell?”

  Sorem scoured the table, the desks, and finally the floor before upending all the trash cans. “Nothing.” She kicked the wall. “Fuck! Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

  “You didn’t see anyone?” the major asked. His voice was incredibly level, betraying not one hint of emotion.

  “No.” Melin ran her hands through her hair, then remembered they were bloody. Fuck. “Did Herring’s implant catch anything?”

  “Nothing. Bastard got him from behind.” The major shook his head slightly. “It was right after you left the room—I pulled it up as soon as I got here.”

  So, he knew she had nothing to do with this mess. Some of the tension drained away. “What happened?” she asked carefully. He knew she had nothing to do with this mess, and yet he made her think—the adrenaline high cooled, replaced with a calm,
deep anger tightening in her chest and bringing everything into hyper focus.

  The bodies. The scent of blood. The window. The map. The tech. The prisoner.

  Dar’Tan sighed.

  “It’s classified,” Sorem snapped before he answered.

  “She’s as involved as any of us.” He spoke with clinical detachment when he replied to Melin, “The prisoner broke out from his cell about an hour ago. Blew the entire room and leveled out the floor above. We have no idea how he did it—the tech was up, and he had no explosives. He vanished, and we thought he had left the island. Then the tech went down. Everything else has checked out clear. You know the rest.”

  “Of course this shit would happen right as the fucking wormhole gets hot,” Sorem muttered. Dar’Tan shot her a scathing glare, and she flung up her hands in anger.

  “Let’s head downstairs,” Dar’Tan said. “I need to brief the ambassador.”

  Melin gazed out the open window.

  She stepped closer, an irrational part of her brain thinking she might spot the prisoner escaping across the lawn or scrambling over the walls.

  The night sky was stark and cold, mirroring her anger. The embassy grounds were empty.

  “Looks like our trip is going to be a lot sooner than we expected,” Sorem said, the conversation breaking Melin’s thoughts. “This attack can’t go unanswered.”

  Only starlight and the flicker of flame from the torches on the wall broke the blackness of the sky.

  “We leave tomorrow.” Dar’Tan’s voice held the anger Melin felt, tightly controlled and filled with vengeance.

  Only starlight.

  A chill swept through Melin, having nothing to do with the open window.

  The darkness of the moons.

  And after that?

  Then, you won’t have to worry about me at all.

  Chapter Nineteen

  There were sixteen other people on the shuttle.

  The atmosphere was tense and expectant, everyone thinking of the deaths of their comrades earlier that morning.

  The pilots and crew chief hung at the front completing their final checks. Sharing the tension of the rest of the squad, all three had exchanged their stunners for pistols and wore plain steel bayonets freshly issued from the quartermaster’s office.

  Dar’Tan sat in the seat across from her, only the constant tenting of his fingers betraying his nerves. Sorem Bartroilly sat to his left. The sergeant of the squad sat next to Melin. Everyone, including Sorem, wore flash armor instead of combat armor, but as before on the last shuttle journey, three sets of space armor were parked in the middle of the shuttle. Melin had no doubts those suits would be filled long before they got to their destination.

  The expedition’s planning had been fast-tracked—due to the ambassador’s orders to find whoever was responsible and the high-running rage among embassy security.

  The first target had been the mayor’s compound.

  It had revealed nothing. The house was empty, Zhoki and his wife gone along with the rest of their household. Nothing had been disturbed. There was a meal laid out on the table that had long since cooled, and all clothing appeared to still be in the house. It appeared like they had vanished into thin air.

  Even eerier, no one moved in the streets across the bay. Drone scans revealed no one moving outside, and the few heat signatures registering from inside the delipidated buildings revealed people had either evacuated or were hunkering down to await the latest IASS assault.

  It was an attack that would come to Corlay, not Veskie.

  Their target was the damir of Zakuska.

  Melin didn’t know why Adorjan and not the damir of Apharom Province, but her rage was hot enough that she hadn’t asked questions.

  Now, as the shuttle’s deck rumbled underneath her feet and the engines whined before settling into a steady hum, she wished she had asked more questions. She was glad she was going, but she wanted to know whose throat she was going to slice.

  Her gaze drifted to the three metal cylinders strapped between the suits.

  Or who they were going to bomb.

  Melin buckled her harness and tugged at her flash armor. The jumpsuit pinched at her armpits and bit into her crotch if she sat up too straight, but she was happy she had some protection this time. The helmet more than made up for the suit’s physical discomfort as the head’s-up display linked her into the soldiers and their implants. She felt nearly whole for the first time in forever. Even though she wasn’t able to communicate in anything other than vocals, it was something. Three side tabs inset on the rolling scroll of data indicated chat rooms, implant side conversations she could actually access. She was connected in a way she’d been missing for years. Decades, if she counted the time in cryo-sleep.

  Her stomach dropped as the shuttle left the ground, and she checked the knife tucked into her boot and the pistol holstered at her side one last time. The soldiers were all equipped with plas rifles while Major Dar’Tan and Sorem carried pistols like hers.

  She settled deeper into her seat, squirming to find a more comfortable position as her exhaustion overcame her anger.

  It would be several hours before they landed outside Corlay, and she let herself drop off.

  The shuttle’s steady bobbing of turbulence lulled her to a fitful sleep.

  *

  She soared among the clouds, arms outstretched, fingers splayed to catch wisps of water and magic. Dark shadows flew through the sky beside her, comforting and safe.

  Something tingled at her inner awareness, filling her body with a blue light that made her feel like she floated through the air on a cloud—

  “Shit shit shit shit shit!”

  The final scream brought Melin fully awake and conscious.

  The shuttle plunged, snapping her head down against the pressing gravity. Her stomach roiled as the shuttle lost altitude sharply.

  Something thunked onto the ceiling, but she couldn’t move her head. Her chin pressed onto her chest.

  The shuttle rocked.

  There was another meaty thunk and a swear of pain.

  Melin rolled her head with the shuttle’s movement and the release of pressure.

  The soldiers were locked into their seats, weapons forgotten as the shuttle was tossed about the sky. Sorem’s mouth opened, her cries joined by another thunk as someone was flung up to the ceiling again.

  It was Dar’Tan.

  He’d unstrapped for some reason and was being tossed about the cabin like a doll.

  Without thinking Melin slapped her chest.

  The straps retracted, and she launched herself toward the major, colliding midair as the shuttle lurched again and rolled. They smacked into a seat, something snapped, and they tumbled onto the floor, an empty food wrapper hitting her face.

  Melin wrapped her arms about his chest and hauled the major up, dragging into an empty seat and hooking her foot around a chair support for balance. Hands gripped her, steadying her as she muscled him into the chair and tugged the straps into place.

  The shuttle jerked, and his head lolled loosely, too loosely, mouth sagging open.

  She’d saved a dead man.

  Someone screamed.

  The shuttle rolled again, and she rolled with it.

  There was a loud pop and her leg freed itself from the seat.

  She hit the ceiling with a thump and then the floor when the shuttle righted itself. One of the soldiers grabbed her leg and another hugged her torso. The two clutched her tightly as the shuttle continued to buck and roll.

  “What the hell happened?” Her mind raced. What the fuck had happened to send them into this wild flight pattern? Were they evading something? What was happening? Were they crashing? Oh fuck, what if they were crashing. Combat shuttles weren’t equipped with ejection seats since they were primarily meant for space, and since this one was used onplanet, its safety pods had been removed. At best, it had environmental suits still stashed in the floorboards, but those wouldn’t help them now. />
  “Shuttle started going crazy about two minutes ago,” the soldier holding her torso shouted. “The major tried to check on the pilots.”

  “And none of you tried to help him?” she snarled.

  At the same time, the soldier at her legs screamed, “I think they’re dead. I can’t reach them on the comm. Oh fuck they’re dead. They’re dead.”

  Melin groaned. “Of all the stupid—”

  The shuttle’s engines gave out.

  The downward plunge ripped her away.

  Her head hit one of the seats, and the ceiling became the floor again.

  Gravity pressed her back, but she crawled to the flight deck.

  “I’m trying the command overrides!” Sorem shouted.

  The shuttle began its final plummet, but she pressed forward, centimeter by centimeter, fingers scraping for any bit of purchase. Her mind focused on one thing. She had to get to the pilots’ chairs and try to ease it to the ground.

  She dragged herself into the tiny flight deck and pulled herself through the door.

  The pilots were dead. Blood was smeared across their faces, no sign of how it happened, but that didn’t matter now.

  She crawled over the copilot to get to the controls, half-lying across the dead woman’s lap. The toggle jiggled loosely in her hands.

  Nothing.

  Her fingers numbly pressed buttons, flipped switches. Her good foot managed to work its way down toward the pedals until she sat in the pilot’s lap, the body still warm.

  No lights came on. Her helmet’s head’s-up display was completely blank.

  Understanding hit like a punch.

  The tech was down.

  They were all fucked.

  Melin stared out the cockpit’s sunshield. Mountains. High, snow covered mountains rose before her, growing closer with each passing second.

  A sudden calm came over her as she gazed at the snowy peaks. They hadn’t been heading to Zakuska Province after all. If they had, they had drastically overshot by several hours. These were the Dragonbacks, the treacherous mountain range no IASS person had ever crossed.

  She’d felt this calm a couple of times before.

  During her first ambush.