“You swear we’re going to be okay?” she asked. He’d never seen her so shaken up, and she’d been by his side for some pretty insane stuff.
“I swear.” He helped her clasp her helmet on, the thin material hardly more than a quarter-inch thick. Flint remembered seeing images of the old-generation suits, and was amazed at how far they’d come as a race. It had been so long since humans were planet-locked on Earth, but in the grand scheme of things, a few hundred years wasn’t that long.
Flint considered it and grabbed a stunner, tucking it into the suit’s holster. He tried to pass Kat one as well and noticed she was already carrying a weapon.
“What’s that for?” she asked, and he shrugged.
“Call it a gut feeling.” Flint didn’t want to leave anything to chance, not when it came to Earth Fleet.
They went back to engineering, and he now dragged the woman to the rear of the ship, setting her beside her counterpart. “I’m going to check it out. You stay here,” he said, saying the rest in his head. Just in case.
Kat said she would, and Flint entered the barrier. The energy fields acted like a fence from space. You could walk through, but air stayed put. One of Flint’s friends tried to explain it to him over too many drinks one night, and he’d gotten a headache. He blamed the science talk, not the whisky.
The barrier ran in a cylinder in space for two meters before it opened into the Fleet Recon fighter. He’d been aboard one back in the day, when he’d worn the same patch on his jumpsuit that the dead people on his ship wore now. That was a long time ago, though, and Flint stepped cautiously onto the Fleet vessel. It was so small, at least twenty times smaller than his own freighter.
He listened for any noises but heard nothing. While the ship wasn’t made for more than two, it could house three if necessary. He hoped it hadn’t been necessary. There was just enough room for two bunks, one on either side of the tiny room he was in; beyond was a toilet in a cubby on the left and an even more compact kitchen on the right. The cockpit was ahead, and Flint stepped into it, finally relaxing as he saw two vacant chairs, each with their own console.
He took one more step and felt the shove from behind. He was tossed forward, crashing into the pilot’s seat before falling to the floor.
“Halt. Earth Fleet demands you stay where you are!” The woman’s voice was loud enough to hurt his ears in the confined space.
He glanced up and saw that she was holding a gun, not a stunner. She was committed. This was it. Flint Lancaster was going to meet his demise aboard an Earth Fleet Recon ship, just like the one he’d stolen when he’d escaped their clutches twelve years earlier. He almost laughed at the irony.
“Why are you laughing?” the Marine asked, her face scrunched up.
“Why did you make me kill them?” he asked softly. “What was worth that price?”
She shrugged. “They don’t tell us all the details. You had something illegal in your possession, and we were sent for the stick.”
So it had been the videos they’d been after. He tried to keep her talking. The stunner sat in his right hand, which was tucked under the pilot’s seat, out of her line of sight.
“It’s useless. The videos aren’t on it anymore. We saw them and destroyed the files. Believe me, I’d rather have never seen what I saw. Aliens. Who the hell would’ve thought? Well, I suppose a lot of people have thought it, but now? Four hundred years after our first colony attempt, and I find out that we’ve been visited by extraterrestrials. It’s lunacy.” Flint could tell by her expression it was all news to her.
“Are you saying there are aliens out there, and they’ve been visiting us?” the woman asked, her right eye twitching. Her gun was still raised, aimed directly at Flint’s chest.
“That’s what I’m saying. Videos from ninety years ago, showing them entering our solar system through a rift in space. I wouldn’t believe it either, if I hadn’t seen the proof.” She lowered her gun now, and he started to breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe they could get out of this without anyone else dying.
“I don’t believe it. You’re right,” she said.
“Why else would they send three of you out to the middle of nowhere to board a freighter ship?” Flint asked her.
“My job is to do as I’m told, not to ask questions.” Two loud bangs shot out behind her, and Flint scrambled to his feet as the Marine’s eyes went wide. Blood seeped through the front of her white jumpsuit and she crumpled to the ground.
Kat stood ten yards behind her, gun still raised in the air, her arm shaking so much, Flint was worried she’d accidentally shoot him in the process.
“Kat, lower the gun!” he shouted, and she finally looked up from the dead body in front of her. Her pistol clanged to the floor.
10
Wren
Today was the day. Apparently, she was going to attempt a jailbreak with an android and a prayer. Crews were pulling extra shifts, and her floor was no exception. Wren already missed having Mara around, but had surprised herself by not crying herself to sleep after finding out her only friend in the prison was gone. It made it that much easier to make her decision. She was going to take the android guard up on his offer, as ludicrous as it sounded.
The smelting factory was in full form today. Uranus was an odd planet, primarily made up of ice, but once early exploratory vessels determined its small moon Caliban was rich in metals within the core, the mining had begun. Wren recalled learning about the planet in grade school with the other children, not giving it any thought when the instructor told them about the fact that prisoners were sent to these mines to work.
All she knew now was that they were deep below the frigid surface, and that robotic drills were bringing in rocky material, breaking free deposits of whatever alloy they were after. The smelters did the rest, separating the gases and slag off the material. The raw metals were then moved to be molded into panels, or whatever the Earth Fleet needed. They weren’t told much about what they were producing, nor did any of the prisoners care. It was part of their job, and where the metal sheets and supplies went after they were done with them remained a mystery.
Wren assumed most went to manufacturing ships and weapons, though she hadn’t seen anything that looked dangerous. There was probably an entire other prison for that, or perhaps they had the androids and drones do that type of work for the Fleet. Wren didn’t think she’d trust a prison full of convicts with armaments.
Whatever was happening, the Fleet was demanding more supplies, and quickly. By the end of her ten-hour shift, Wren was filthy, exhausted, and starving. She scanned the androids for the one who’d named himself CD6 to her. They all looked the same to her. Had the one by the door nodded at her? She wasn’t sure and didn’t want to risk anything by asking.
Wren set about her regular routine and found the showers. Forty women lined up, waiting for their five-minute turn in a private stall. You could use the communal and have less wait time, but after seeing what went on in there her first day, she hadn’t returned. Wren was mid-way in the line, and there were ten private stalls, so she didn’t have to wait long for her turn.
Few spoke in the queue, and those who did were subdued. Overt conversation was frowned upon and punishable by many things, the most common being losing eating rights for a day. Wren kept to herself and soon found herself in the comfort of a bland private stall. It locked on a timer for five minutes, and she often thought of this period each day as her oasis away from it all. Five minutes alone, tucked away with lukewarm water, soap, and a brush.
Wren set her clothing in the cubby and let the liquid pour over her, washing away the day’s toil. She was greasy, but her dirt-streaked face came clean with some incessant rubbing with the soap. Far too soon, the water turned off and the driers kicked in. She felt like she was at one of the antiquated twenty-first century car washes she’d seen on the Interface. Wren wanted to beg for more time, to have an extra few moments to compose herself before dinner, where she’d have to remember that M
ara wouldn’t be sitting waiting for her ever again.
She hadn’t known as much about the woman as she would have liked, but she knew enough to love her like a sister. For two years, they’d spent almost every meal together, and that had formed a bond. Mara had done bad things, straight from the younger woman’s mouth, but she never did tell Wren what that meant. Whatever it had been, Wren didn’t think she deserved the life she’d ended up with. Mara had been there for five years, and now, Wren considered her fate may have been a blessing.
The door buzzed open, and Wren was only half dressed. She turned from the gaze of the thick woman waiting to get into the stall.
The woman raised a fist. “Get out!”
“It’s all yours,” Wren said, pulling her jumpsuit up and zipping it closed. She wanted to tell the woman all sorts of things, and where she could stick them, but it wasn’t worth it. She was breaking free tonight.
Even Wren didn’t really believe that, but she let the idea guide her forward. She ate with cold efficiency, not knowing if it would be her last meal or not. No one thought freeze-dried potatoes and creamed corn would taste so good, but Wren thought they might have been the best food she’d ever had.
The line moved slowly as the prisoners plodded their tired legs, making their way to the central lift that would bring them to their floors. Wren looked up, wondering if CD6 was watching her now. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. Ten minutes later, she was on the seventh floor, stepping into her cell as the energy fields were down. As soon as she was through, the familiar buzz caused her arm hair to stand on end until she stepped away from it.
Wren felt disappointed, as if the day had been anticlimactic. Where was CD6? When was this all going to go down? She sat on the bed and felt a lump under the thin mattress. She looked out to the hall, making sure no one was peering in, and stuck her hand between the foam and the metal bunk. It gripped a stunner’s handle, and she set it down, pulling her hand out as if it had been stung by a wasp.
Wren sat back and waited. For the first time in two years, she couldn’t stop smiling.
Ace
If Ace hadn’t known better, he would have thought he was in a real EFF-17. The image coming from the viewscreen seemed like the real thing. They were parked inside a computer-generated EFC-02, which was the largest carrier the Fleet ran. The ship numbers and functions were being drilled into the recruits’ heads day and night, and Ace had a decent grasp on the nomenclature. EF was easy, since it stood for Earth Fleet; F stood for fighter, C for carrier, S for skimmer, R for Recon fighter, DS for drop ship, and on it went until Ace’s eyes crossed.
The ship he was sitting in wasn’t long, only around thirty-five feet – or at least the real one was. The simulator was just a cockpit and a seat in a room, where a dozen more sat in a row beside it. Ace could hear whoops echoing down the line and felt the rush of excitement the other recruits were feeling.
Every kid dreamed of being in the Earth Fleet, and every single one of them wanted, at some point, to race a fighter around space, protecting the solar system from bandits, terrorists, and potentially alien attackers.
Ace observed the viewscreen, seeing the long nose of his fighter stretch out. To his right, powerful thrusters sat on each side of the cockpit; beyond them sat cannons where armor-piercing bullets resided, alongside the larger nuclear shells that were capable of mass destruction.
He thought back to what Lieutenant Clemments, the man in charge of the simulators, had said only a few minutes before, when they’d sat for two hours prior to using the facility. “Bullets for dogfights, shells for full vessel or carrier assaults. Bombs below, for on-ground missions. And the pulse cannons are for any and all of the above. Got it?” The whole class had yelled, “Yes, sir!” and he’d continued on.
Ace wondered when the Earth Fleet actually had needed to bomb anybody, and who they’d be in a dogfight with, but disregarded his own concern. He was at the Earth Fleet boot camp, sitting in an EFF-17 simulator. He could worry about those things while he stared at the ceiling at night.
He slipped on the headset and mask sitting on the console, and the heads-up display glowed with red lettering in the top right corner. At first, it was distracting, but it was there to teach him, and he focused on what it was telling him.
Ace followed the instructions and looked to the side, where he could see the representation of another fighter. All ten of them would be working together on a mission, in real time with the simulators. He wished Serina was there with him, but none of the other Blues were there.
He pressed the ignition as the HUD told him, and his seat rumbled. Activate thrusters and send power through the shields. Ace did that, tapping the indicated buttons and flipping the highlighted switches. A blue glow arced around his ship in a dome, enveloping him with a protective shield. It wouldn’t stop all attacks, but it would keep him alive if he scraped into an asteroid or the side of a ship, as long as it wasn’t head-on at full speed.
He saw a ship two spots over race forward, starting then stopping as the pilot fiddled with the thrusters. Eventually, the pilot raced the ship out of the carrier opening and into space, the female pilot screaming from two doors down.
Another fighter took off and spun to the side, crashed into the hangar’s wall, and exploded.
“That is not how you launch.” Lieutenant Clemments’ voice rang out behind them. “Reset and start again.”
A few of the students snickered at the terrible effort, but Ace didn’t. He was more concerned with himself. The last thing he wanted was to duplicate what that person had done.
Ace took a different approach. He eased the throttle on, smoothly pushing the thrusters forward. At the same time, he gently lifted the handle, feeling the fighter lift off the ground. It felt so real, he had a hard time believing he wasn’t really on that carrier. The controls gave him resistance, the stick vibrating as his hand gripped it tightly.
His HUD gave him a grade on the takeoff, a ninety-five. He didn’t know what they were looking for, but that sounded good to Ace. He breached the energy field on the carrier’s open slot and emerged into space. The feeling of being weightless and all alone in the universe nearly crushed Ace into the back of his seat.
It felt like he’d just run over the edge of a cliff, but instead of falling, he hovered in the air. He sat still in his seat for a moment, staring out the cockpit window, seeing nothing but stars in all directions.
An alert flashed on his visor, and he glanced down at his radar, seeing one of the fighters heading straight for him. “EFF-17-545A, watch where you’re going!” Ace yelled into his headset. But the ship kept coming for him, so he urged the thrusters harder and lifted up, seeing the ship coast under him as he rolled around, slowing his fighter once again.
“Sorry about that, EFF-17-546B. I’ll get used to it,” a friendly voice said back.
“Anyone know where we’re off to?” another asked, the voice low-pitched and female.
Ace used his HUD and brought up a 3D map in his visor. A green beacon flashed in the distance. “Use the HUD. Green flash, two thousand kilometers. Setting course. Follow my lead if you like.” He started forward, taking a moment to switch the camera feed on the left half of his viewscreen to see the carrier behind him.
It was huge. The slot they’d emerged from was a tiny sliver on the massive vessel. At least twenty more slots were visible, each with at least ten fighters. Each side of the long rectangular ship would look the same. At full capacity, they’d hold two hundred EFF-17 fighters, six drop ships, and a crew of five hundred, plus infantry.
Ace wondered if he’d ever see one for real, though he was impressed with the simulated view he had now. As he shut the camera off, he raced forward, seeing the other vessels join his trajectory – all except one that headed in the opposite direction. Ace knew that flying in three dimensions like this was complicated, and not every brain was a match for it. He was already finding he understood the spatial mapping and couldn’t have been happier if h
e’d found a thousand credits in his account.
The small flashing dot of his destination grew larger as the fighter’s engines thrummed, accelerating faster.
Flint
Flint dumped the last body from Perdita onto the Marines’ ship and checked on Kat. “Everything okay?” he asked through the EVA’s comm-system.
“Sure,” she replied. “I’m stuffing bombs on an Earth Fleet ship sent to kill us and steal some old video we weren’t supposed to see. Other than that, I’m great.” As if her frustration wasn’t clearly coming through, she added, “And how did the moving of the carcasses go? Fine? Good, glad to hear it.” Kat huffed, and he left her to wire the explosives.
Flint’s suit had built-in thrusters, but he didn’t trust them as far as he could throw a dead body, which he’d learned wasn’t very far. Instead, he attached a tether to his belt, clamping him onto his own ship… just in case.
Kat came out of the engineering room and stood behind him. “Bombs are ready. You sure this is the only way?”
The good news was, she was still coming to him for direction, so he hadn’t lost her faith entirely. Flint couldn’t afford for her to go off the deep end here. He’d barely been hanging on over the years, and having her around had kept him going. He decided, then and there, that he would cut her loose as soon as he could. Maybe even on Europa, if she was willing. It was as good a colony as any; far better than Mars, and better than any of the old cities on Earth.
Kat could start over. She was still young. Flint had an inkling of what the rest of his life was going to look like. He’d spend the next couple years trying to hide out from what he’d just done, and then it would eventually come back on him. Some down-on-their-luck local, on whatever crappy rock Flint set his roots down on, would sell him out to the Fleet, and he’d end up hauling rocks on Mercury until he died.
“Flint?” she asked, and he realized he hadn’t answered her question.
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