En Route

by Maksim Malik

  Afterward, she switched the rifle back to single-target mode. She didn’t want to accidentally harm any people. Continuing her way to the apartment at a brisk jog, she tried to avoid the aliens if she could. Otherwise she shot them quickly. The single-target discharge, white energy concentrated into a short beam, took down aliens instantly with head or chest targets. At times she could feel Adan take over and perform the shots necessary for tricky ones, or for groups where it needed to fire and re-aim faster than Nadani could process.

  Since none of the aliens made no sound, Nadani realized they couldn’t. They were communicating somehow though—she knew that when one alien spotted her and suddenly the rest of the group turned in unison toward her. Strange and nerve-wracking, the closer she approached the apartment, the emptier the streets and pathways became. With no resistance to withhold her progress, she arrived at the apartment without issue.

  “Trisha!” she yelled as she entered the apartment. The apartment seemed empty. Nadani checked the kitchen and bathroom before proceeding to the bedroom. “Trisha!” she called out again, desperation clear in her voice. Nadani looked in the closets to see if she hid there but found nothing again.

  Adan, I don’t know what to do, Nadani said. She felt shaky, panicky.

  I’m checking the security logs to see if she came here, Adan said.

  Nadani bit her lip while waiting, running her hand through the wig.

  I’m sorry, Adan said. She never entered the apartment.

  Can you hack the station security? Nadani asked.

  It’s highly illegal—but yes, I can, Adan replied. We could go to prison for a long time for doing so.

  Please do that and try to find Trisha. Please, Adan, Nadani said.

  I will be careful not to leave a trace of myself, Adan said. One moment.

  Nadani sat on the edge of the bed while she waited, her forehead tensed, and breath coming fast.

  I found her, Adan said. Footage at least.

  Show me, Nadani said.

  Let me explain first—

  Show me, Nadani insisted.

  Very well, Adan said.

  Nadani closed her eyes and saw a vid playing on her mental overlay. There, Trisha fought two aliens, keeping them at bay from her. It looked like she downed one with a kick to the head. A sudden laser blast struck her from behind and she fell to the floor.

  “No!” yelled Nadani, her world rocked dangerously. A red fury of rage descended upon her, an anger she never knew she could possess.

  Soon the bed and apartment were far behind her as she ran back toward the docks.

  She’s been taken to the group of people awaiting to board that ship, Adan said. It left but came back again so there isn’t much time.

  Nadani flipped the switch on the rifle to multiple and ran faster. She did not stop to fight any of the aliens—foolish and reckless, she blasted them as she came toward them. Some saw her coming and missed her by mere centimeters.

  “Shit!” she exclaimed as she entered the docks. The abductees were not in sight, but the ship was still there. As she ran toward it, she stopped and changed direction, heading straight for Astromancer. The ship had begun its undocking procedures.

  Astromancer had a dozen alien corpses around the airlock. On either side of it stood two turrets in the same style as the rifle Dr. Tysgan gave her. As she opened the outer door, she almost bumped into Dr. Tysgan.

  “Help bring in other turret please,” Dr. Tysgan said.

  The turrets folded until they were white cubes with smooth corners. She lifted one of them, with the rifle strapped on her back, more than a little annoyed by the delay. The cube she found to be lighter than expected.

  “Where is Trisha?” Dr. Tysgan asked.

  “She’s on the alien ship,” Nadani said. “We’re going after it.”

  “Understood,” Dr. Tysgan said after a brief pause.

  We can disable it with the EPM if we get close enough, Adan said. The electroplasmatic missile would disable any shipboard systems—if they worked the same as known technology.

  That’s the plan, Nadani said. Now inside the ship, Nadani placed the turret-box in the middle of the floor in the corridor and headed straight to the bridge. She climbed into the pilot’s pit and had Adan enable systems before it even closed to secure her.

  Docking control has unlocked all pads, Adan said. We’re free to launch at our discretion.

  Good, she replied.

  With that, Astromancer lifted off the docking pad and headed toward open space at breakneck speed. The alien ship, which was much wider than it was tall, cleared quite a distance from the station already. It headed toward a formation of ships, an entire armada.

  Shields set to front, Adan said.

  Nadani acknowledged the comment with a thought and ramped her thrusters to full when she cleared the station.

  It’s accelerating at a remarkable rate, Adan said.

  “We have to catch it,” Nadani said. “We have to.”

  Astromancer gained on the ship, but the ship’s distance from the armada worried her.

  Will we make it? she asked Adan.

  It will be at the armada when we do, Adan said. We will have to disable it and hope they abandon it.

  Sweat grew on Nadani’s brow and threatened to drip down while her heart hammered in her chest. She might be committing suicide approaching the armada but so far, they did nothing to stop any of the other ships escaping the station.

  The ship full of captives would be back to the armada in mere seconds. Nadani knew they were in range of the armada’s ships now. The Astromancer had good shields, but they had a limit, and an entire armada went beyond it.

  Priming the EPM, Nadani said.

  Just then all the ships in the armada glowed with red light, growing brighter in unison.

  Shit, Nadani thought and fired the missile at her target.

  Beams of red fired from every ship apart from the ship she chased and went behind her. She felt utterly relieved until she saw the explosions in the rear cameras. They fired on the station and destroyed it—utterly. Turning her focus back to the electroplasmatic missile she fired, she waited for it to hit the ship—but the ship vanished.

  All the ships folded away.

  Annabella

  Harmonic Essences floated in nullspace, quiet and with thrusters off.

  Inside the ship, Annabella Summerlin was far from quiet and motionless. She paced up and down the corridor biting her lower lip and stewed in her own frustration. One thing singled out in her thoughts: Nadani Jagi.

  Oh, how she hated Jagi.

  The game for the data was long finished, and Annabella had lost everything—even her own name. Though in a way she was thankful Fengwa saw to her welfare enough to provide her with another. But here she was, Lady by blood, without crew, and without ship besides this private vessel. She didn’t even have her assistant, Pulman—though Annabella didn’t know if he lived or was in custody. Her network of ears had dimmed. It was Fengwa’s punishment for her failure, she knew. But for how long?

  She deviated out of the corridor and into the bedroom. The cozy room started to feel like home since she tossed out the former owner’s items and wardrobe, replacing it with her own. She couldn’t keep the previous owner’s clothes even if she wanted to; she had a much larger frame than Annabella.

  Annabella could buy a dreadnought with her own fortune, but a Lady buying her own dreadnought and not having one provided would prove her to be a laughing stock. She would work through her punishment with humility but doing so did not mean she would remain idle. Besides, she did not want to spend her time screening an entire crew.

  She spent a few minutes touching up her make-up. Although nobody could appreciate it, she still wore it for herself. Then she went to the bridge and sat in the pilot’s pit, plugging her suit in to the ship. The fifteen minutes of spooling down completed and now the FSS could spool up and fold to another endpoint. She spent most of her time in foldspace, setting sol trip
s to various safe nullspace coordinates. It was a habit—ships were a lot harder to find when they were always in foldspace. So far, she’d been lucky, and nobody had come asking about this ship. She killed the owner around a year ago while escaping custody.

  While the foldspace system spooled up, Annabella thought back to when she had Jagi in her clutches for questioning, and the absolute erotic pleasure she received when she was Needles. She remembered Jagi saying she had been trained by an AI named Adan on a planet somewhere. At the time it didn’t seem important—just an interesting piece of information. She remembered it was a university project somewhere, but so many universities had martial arts programs. It certainly didn’t help to narrow down the choices.

  If only she could remember.

  Rudderless

  Nadani climbed out of the pit, anger and despair conflicting violently within her so much so she headed straight for the bathroom and vomited. There had to be something—some way she could find Trisha.

  I’m sorry, Adan said. It sounded as upset as Nadani—or maybe she felt the reflection of her emotions from Adan. There is simply no way to know where they went. Tracking a ship after they’ve folded is impossible.

  No, she replied. Ruthan T’vari did it to find Astromancer once. How did he do that?

  There was probably some way to track you built-in to the devices you had installed on your ship at his station, Adan said. A q-com device reporting coordinates could conceivably be miniscule. Otherwise there is no way to know where a ship is going. Q-com was a method of communicating faster-than-light and almost in real time.

  Shit, she thought. Tears formed unbidden in her eyes and she steeled herself, pressing her lips together firmly, and straightened herself to stand upright. She blinked away the tears and forced herself to push away the emotions threatening to overwhelm her. Behind her she heard tapping on the bathroom door. It could only be Dr. Tysgan. She rubbed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

  “Came to check if you are okay,” Dr. Tysgan said. “We—Park, myself—grieve with you,” he added with the slightest tinge of sadness to his voice.

  Kahelek don’t show when they are upset, Adan said. To show this much is considerable for him.

  “Dr. Tysgan,” she said, inclining her head as she exited the bathroom. “Let’s sit in the lounge.”

  They both walked to the lounge in silence and sat on the green couch.

  “What do we do?” Nadani asked a moment after they sat.

  “No easy answer there,” Dr. Tysgan replied. He took a deep breath. “Aliens are gone—where they are, we cannot tell. Certainly they not coming back here.”

  A long moment passed.

  “Yeah,” Nadani said finally. Admitting they were gone—that Trisha was gone—was hard to do.

  “Why do you not cry?” Dr. Tysgan said. “It is the human, healthy thing to do, yes?”

  “I can’t,” Nadani said. “I have to be strong.”

  “Strength in this predicament helps little,” Dr. Tysgan said. “It is all right to. I do not judge. It is a human reaction to trauma.”

  Dr. Tysgan wore down her walls—her eyes welled with tears again.

  “Park tells me not to push,” Dr. Tysgan said. “Very well, I will not push. But I am here and mourn in my own way. If you need, yes?”

  You know I’m here too, Adan said, showing her its love toward her and offering comfort.

  I know, she replied, trying to reply in kind with her own emotions of love toward the AI even though it was hard to do at the moment.

  “Okay,” Nadani said, her voice unsteady. No, she couldn’t give in to mourning now. She would find a way to bring back Trisha. She should’ve gone with Trisha. Then maybe things would be different.

  Yes, maybe they would’ve taken us too, Adan said. At least we were off-station when they destroyed Sulai.

  Yeah, Nadani replied, shivering. There had to be plenty of people on the station still. I hope the military catches up to them somehow.

  “As for what to do? I do not know,” he said.

  “Well, we are supplied now,” Nadani said. “You still need to get to Jehlengen.”

  “Now? After this you would continue?” Dr. Tysgan seemed taken aback.

  “What else can I do?” she asked. “I’m not giving up on Trisha. There’s going to be a way to get her back—I just know it. And maybe on the way to Jehlengen we’ll figure it out.”

  I know I need something to do so I don’t end up curling in bed for sols, Nadani thought.

  FVR training might be good while we’re in transit, Adan said. If that’s what we’re doing.

  Is it a bad idea? she asked.

  No, it gives you a few sols to process what has happened, Adan said. And it helps Dr. Tysgan at the same time. Remember his ident has likely been passed to every CAAI group in the galaxy by now.

  Where do the kahelek come from anyway? I’ve never heard of anyone going there before, she said.

  That is something you are better off asking Dr. Tysgan, Adan said. As far as I know, no human has been to kahelek space, yet trade exists through kahelek traders. Kahelek goods are well sought after.

  Interesting, she thought.

  “I am not opposed to the idea to continue,” Dr. Tysgan said.

  “Sounds like that’s what we’re doing then,” Nadani said. She didn’t get up yet—for some reason she needed to build up the motivation to do so.

  “Do you need space from me during voyage?” Dr. Tysgan asked. “Or my presence is better?”

  “If I need space, then I’ll go into the bedroom so don’t worry about that,” Nadani said. The questions and considerations touched Nadani though. Unused to human ways, at least Dr. Tysgan tried to accommodate her grief. She could think of several humans who would do no such thing.

  Taking a short, sharp breath, Nadani stood from the couch.

  “I’ll get us underway,” Nadani said, left the lounge, and walked onto the bridge. She could have let Adan set up the FSS to Jehlengen, but she needed something to do, something to occupy her thoughts at least for a little while.

  “One minute, twenty seconds until folding initiates,” she said over the ship’s coms after she set the endpoint and started spooling up the foldspace system. The FSS used to take around two minutes to spool. Opening the pit, she desynched her mental interface with that of the ship and stood. The pit could serve as an escape pod for the pilot of the ship—something she hoped never to need on Astromancer.

  She went straight to her bedroom and laid facedown on her bed, burying her head in her pillows. What action could she take to bring back Trisha?

  I can’t do this.

  Jehlengen Border Station

  Five sols in foldspace—Nadani spent longer in foldspace, but not by much. When she came to Gershan space from Dier space she had Astromancer aboard a transport ship which was in foldspace for seven sols. The transport ship could fold much faster than her ship—maybe close to twice as fast. This trip she passed the time in various full virtual reality simulations, particularly a martial arts training program. In the trainer she reached intermediate status—she still lacked the speed in which Adan could react during combat situations. She wondered on occasion if it was even possible to gain such a reaction speed naturally. Apart from FVR, she read novels and watched vids from her media library. With Trisha on her mind constantly, she could only hope Adan would find something useful searching through logs to get an inkling about the armada and the alien ship.

  What is happening to Trisha? she wondered.

  Nadani finished donning her plugsuit and walked through the lounge to the bridge. Dr. Tysgan followed her excitedly.

  “Two minutes and twenty-two seconds until endpoint,” Nadani said after she settled in to the pit and closed it. She set a countdown timer on the main display in the bridge for the two of them to see and had the ship queue the viewscreens to show cams as soon as they left foldspace.

  Excitement rolled around her stomach, for it always t
hrilled her to visit a new location and at the same time, devastation struck her heart since she couldn’t share the feeling with Trisha. Even though she knew the small station was far from busy, stepping onto a new station for her felt like an achievement. Perhaps it highlighted her life’s accomplishments. She ran away from home at seventeen, managed to make enough money to get a student loan and head to college, and then bought her own ship. The bank loan covered all her expenses at the time, but only recently did she pay it back in its entirety. She had worked several jobs and spent every second of free time studying. Though not a top student, she graduated with her pilot’s license in hand.

  And with you in my head, she thought to Adan.

  I cannot deny that, Adan said and laughed.

  During college she volunteered in a lab for an exorbitant amount of money for an AI-human merging trial. The trial succeeded, but ultimately the project shut down when the professor in charge vanished. That left Nadani with the result still in her head—a fact she didn’t enjoy at first but soon changed her mind.

  “Endpoint in ten seconds,” Nadani said.

  Nadani readied herself to contact station control but as soon as they came out of foldspace her heart leaped.

  The station was in ruins. Pieces of it floated around, small fires still burned, and Nadani could not imagine anyone surviving such devastating destruction.

  Ships to starboard, Adan warned her.

  Nadani glanced through the appropriate cams and saw an entire armada—hundreds of ships—in formation. They glistened oddly in the light of the station fires and a few seconds later vanished all at the same time.

  They went to foldspace, Adan said. Those were the same alien ships.

  Nadani felt herself on the verge of panic. They had been so close to disaster. Had they shown up a little earlier the armada would have targeted them as well. But had Trisha been with the armada?

  “Nadani? Are you there?” Nadani heard Dr. Tysgan ask as soon as she opened coms.