Breaking Point

by David Alastair Hayden

  “So you’re not going to ask me anything about the girls?” he asked after some silence.

  “It’s a secret you’re willing to die to keep. It would be foolish to ask even for their names.”

  Together, they watched as the moon slowly rose over the horizon. Today it was a thick crescent, like a lemon with a bite missing.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out what you see when you look out onto this world,” Galen said.

  A smile crept across Tamzin’s face, but she didn’t say anything.

  “When I said you were trapped here… I’m sorry about that.”

  She ran a hand across the metal floor. “This is the only home I’ve ever known.” She pulled the black cube from the pouch on her belt and held it up, peering at her reflection in its surface. “Since we’re playing the questions game…”

  Again, she seemed to be bringing up a topic she didn’t want to discuss. Aside from the fact that she was socially awkward, Tamzin made absolutely no sense.

  “It’s a miniature stardrive, right?”

  She twisted it one way then another, staring silently at it for several minutes. “I suppose it must be, though it only takes me to wraith space.”

  Based on what his trained empathic sense told him, she was even more attached to the cube than she was to this starship.

  “My mother gave it to me,” Tamzin said as if answering his thoughts. “Before she died. ‘It will lead you to safety,’ she told me. ‘It will be your guiding light.’ She was right.”

  “She died here on this ship, didn’t she?” Galen asked, picking up on the sentimental connections Tamzin was practically broadcasting.

  “That’s why I can’t leave.” She laughed pitifully. “It’s not the only reason. I grew up here, stranded alone, from the age of ten to seventeen. The outside world…sometimes I get overwhelmed and frightened, and I have to come back here to…to get away.”

  “You survived here for seven years, all alone?!”

  No wonder she was strange and awkward.

  “It took a year for me to figure out how to use the cube and navigate wraith space, and then six more to reach Titus II. I was never worried. The cube would guide me. And we had enough nutrient blocks stored on the ship for both of us to survive over a decade, and the ship’s water filtration is functional.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Cancer. The medibots we had couldn’t cure it. The tumors appeared and spread rapidly.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “The experiments… My mother was pregnant when she fled…wherever it is I came from. She’d been part of a genetic project that resulted in me. That’s why you probably can’t figure out what human variant I belong to.”

  “Your father?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Who was responsible for the experiment?”

  Tamzin shrugged. “I honestly have no idea. I don’t even know what they were trying to accomplish when they engineered me.”

  He sensed she was leaving something out, perhaps distorting the truth.

  She set the cube on the floor, turned toward him, and pulled off her shirt, revealing pale skin and small, pert breasts with violet nipples.

  He swallowed then stuttered. “Tam–Tamzin, what are you…” His eyes moved from her slim figure to the symbol on her chest, an odd, nine-pointed star like a stain of wine against her milk-white skin. “That’s not a tattoo, is it?”

  Tamzin shook her head. “It’s a birthmark. Mom said the others like me had them as well. She didn’t say why. And she didn’t say how many others. As far as I know, I’m unique now. I haven’t discovered any others on the net.”

  She trailed a finger across the mark. “I don’t even know what it represents, do you? Have you ever seen this symbol? I’ve had my chippy search the net. I’ve asked historians, geneticists, everyone I can think of.”

  “I…I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  His eyes strayed back to the rest of her form, and he seemed to lose a few moments because she suddenly chuckled.

  “Enjoying the view?”

  “What? Oh! I’m sorry.”

  She smiled, the tips of her top teeth touching her bottom lip. “Don’t be.” She pulled her shirt back on. “I should probably keep this on, so I don’t get you too hot and bothered.”

  He stammered a nonsensical reply. She was a lot younger than him, and not his type. Although…he didn’t exactly have a type. He’d only had a couple of one-night stands since the girls’ mother, Ferilla, had died. Given Oona’s nature, he couldn’t trust anyone enough to form a relationship.

  “So…um…do you have any other unique attributes, aside from the birthmark?”

  She hefted the cube. “I can see in the dark. I’m quick, faster than most. I’ve got sharp teeth. And I’m immune to the effects of wraith space. But the only truly unique thing I can do is use the cube.”

  She tossed it to him, and he caught it awkwardly. “Go ahead. Give it a try.”

  “I can’t,” he replied. “What if—”

  “Just press the buttons, old man.”

  “Are you sure it can only take me to wraith space?” he asked.

  “It’s the only place it takes me.” Her lips spread into a devious smile. “If you end up somewhere else, just repeat the procedure and return.”

  “If I end up somewhere else, I’ll be dead.”

  “You’ll be fine,” she told him. “I didn’t go to the trouble of saving you just to have you pop into flux space and disintegrate.”

  Galen steeled his courage then pressed the buttons. The cube warmed and vibrated. And then…

  Nothing happened.

  As the cube cooled, he stared into the glossy dark surface, puzzled. As it had thrummed to life, he’d sensed a presence, as if the cube were alive and possessed feelings.

  He’d spoken with an enger once. The man had assured him that the scientists were wrong, that stardrives were living entities, not machines. That didn’t explain why the Tekk Plague had ruined so many of them. But then the plague had nearly wiped out the engers as well, and they were people. Genetically adapted by the Benevolence to bond with stardrives and repair them, but still people.

  With a disapproving look on her face, Tamzin snatched the black cube from him, did the same thing he’d done, and disappeared. A moment later she returned with a determined grin on her face.

  Maybe she’d been engineered for delving, but she was too young to be an experiment conducted by the Benevolence.

  “Twice, someone took it from me when I first stumbled onto Titus II. That’s how I figured out that no one else could use it. I stole it back from the first one, and the second gave it back and hired me to do a job for him. But instead, I turned him over to the police for a reward.”

  “I didn’t know a stardrive could be so small,” he said.

  “It may be unique,” she said, her tone and emotions suggesting she thought strongly otherwise. “I haven’t found anything on the net about them being any smaller than the ones used in wraith space diving bells, and those are ten times the size of this one.”

  “Your mother didn’t tell you anything else about it?”

  Tamzin shook her head. “Only that it would guide me, and that it was no use to her.”

  “What about her chippy? Surely, it would have had some knowledge of it.”

  Tamzin tapped her temple. “Before she died, she erased all the data and restored the operating system to factory condition.” She sighed deeply. “Mother told me so little. And I could never get her to talk about our past. She’d always say ‘the future is all that matters’ and nothing more.”

  Without a chippy and access to the net, Galen couldn’t verify her story. And she was hiding some things. But that wasn’t unexpected. She hardly knew him. It was surprising she was revealing anything at all about herself.

  His eyes again fell upon the crescent moon as it reached higher into the sky. “So, where are we exactly?”

  “My chippy thinks we’r
e in the Large Magellanic Cloud.”

  “The LMC?!” Galen shouted with amazement.

  “Yep.”

  They were in another galaxy! As far as he knew, they were the first humans to ever visit a galaxy other than the Milky Way. Though if he remembered correctly, the Benevolence had launched probes toward other galaxies. But even using hyperspace, it would take many centuries for those probes to visit then return. If any of them had already done so, the knowledge had never been released.

  “H-how did you end up here?” Galen asked.

  “Through wraith space,” she answered. “Our ship took damage when it entered the Titus system. Mother never said how, but it looks as if a small missile punched through the shields and exploded near the fusion reactor.”

  “And you don’t know who attacked the ship?”

  She shook her head. “It was a miracle we survived. The reactor didn’t explode, and the containment system worked. At that point, Mother took the ship into wraith space. When we reentered real space, we were on this world. The stardrive failed, though, so we were stranded here.”

  Tamzin returned the cube to the pouch on her belt. “I’ll take you back soon. You’re almost fully healed. But don’t worry, I will go alone and scout the way first, to make sure it’s safe.”

  Fear clutched at him. “If you don’t return…I’ll be stranded here.”

  “That’s a lot better than dead.”

  After he went nearly a minute without responding, she turned to him with a sad smile. “It’s not better for you, is it? You’d rather die than be stuck here.”

  Unable to say it, he merely nodded.

  Tamzin placed a hand on his shoulder tenderly. “I promise I won’t leave you stranded here. I’ll make sure you get back to your girls.”

  20

  Siv Gendin

  Sweating and breathing as shallowly as possible, Siv watched the red dots in his locator as Vega Kaleeb and his murderous sky-blade loomed above. They had removed the floor grating to reveal the smuggler’s nook, but they had not dropped in to investigate further. Not yet anyway.

  “I can hear them talking, Silkster, but I can’t make out any of what they’re saying.”

  “I can help, sir.”

  “Safely?”

  “Definitely.”

  With as little power as possible, Silky used the sensor array to listen in on the engineering section. Siv could only barely understand them due to the static the fusion drive caused in the audio feed, so Silky deciphered it and displayed it as text.

  “Rare spices,” Oktara said to Vega. “I’m trying to avoid Titus II’s high import taxes.”

  “He’s good, sir. Titus II does have high tariffs on foodstuffs.”

  Several boxes clattered onto the floor.

  “I think you’re hiding something more from me, Mr. Talos,” Kaleeb growled. So far, the bounty hunter had not seen through the fake identity they’d loaned to Oktara.

  “I assure you I am not.”

  “If I find out you are lying to me, the repercussions will be extreme.”

  “I understand.”

  In his locator, Siv watched the sky-blade drop into the space where the spice boxes had been. It stayed there a few moments then flew back out. Siv waited for it to report that it had found them, but apparently, the fusion drive's interference had worked, because Kaleeb and the sky-blade left the engineering room shortly after.

  In the ship's loading bay, Kaleeb and Oktara spoke for several minutes. He guessed they were talking since all three dots stood together. Silky was unable to safely boost the sound detection enough to hear them.

  Kaleeb departed, and the infiltrator sped away.

  “Do not move, sir. Not yet.”

  Since it was too dark for her to see a hand gesture, Siv reached out and put a finger to Mitsuki's lips to signal that she should remain silent. Given her chippy's more limited capabilities, she may not have known that Kaleeb had departed.

  “I’m going to do a sensor burst as soon as the infiltrator’s too far away to perform a short-range scan.”

  "Please tell me that's not going to be much longer. I really don't want to suffer heatstroke."

  Siv had to suffer for more than half an hour. Understanding what was going on, Oktara didn’t try to communicate with them. Finally, Silky did a second-long, level-five scan, then declared the ship safe.

  “Spy drones?”

  “I checked, sir. He didn’t leave any behind.”

  “Mits, it’s safe to talk now.”

  “Is it safe to crawl out of this hellhole?”

  “It is, Batwings,” Silky said, restoring the secure channel between them.

  They let Oktara know the coast was clear, and he freed them from the cramped space. Mitsuki skipped several paces away and stretched out her wings with a sigh. Siv wiped sweat from his brow and took full breaths of the cool starship air.

  “Thank you,” Siv told Oktara. “You handled that exceptionally well.”

  “I am a skilled negotiator,” Oktara said.

  He led them to the cramped galley and poured them large glasses of water. Despite the metallic tinge and staleness, Siv drank five glasses. Mitsuki called him an idiot but downed six herself.

  “Kaleeb is even more intense than I had expected,” Oktara said. “And he hates the two of you with a passion.”

  “We nearly killed him,” Siv said.

  “I suspect he’s unaccustomed to facing defeat,” Mitsuki added.

  “The orb that accompanied him threatened me by circling around with its blades whirring,” Oktara said. “I cannot imagine having to face that thing in battle.”

  “It’s a sky-blade, and it can cut right through you with ease,” Siv told him. “We barely escaped it before.”

  “Thanks to me, sir.”

  “You’re lucky to be alive,” Mitsuki told Oktara. “Thank you for sticking your neck out for us.”

  “Thank you for restoring hope to my people.”

  “I was worried he’d torture you for information,” Mitsuki said.

  “Kaleeb and the sky-blade both would have conducted scans to detect lies,” Silky said over the ship’s comm. “It seems Master Oktara disguises his lies well.”

  “I have mastered my emotions,” Oktara said. “And he was clearly in a hurry. He offered me money in exchange for any information. I also informed him that I was part of a powerful merchant guild. I gave him credentials I have used in similar but less dangerous situations. That seemed to sway him somewhat.”

  “Was he visibly injured?” Mitsuki asked Oktara.

  “He had a slight limp. Otherwise, I didn’t see anything wrong. But it was hard to tell with all the armor he was wearing and the darkened faceplate. You can check the ship’s video feed. That might help.”

  They checked but found only a loop of static feedback. Kaleeb had fuzzed all of the footage so no one would know that he had been there.

  Oktara closed his eyes and seemed to disappear into himself. Something about his focus and rigidity made Siv not want to bother him. When Oktara spoke again, several minutes later, it was with a grave, worried tone.

  "Just now, I tried to sense your chippy but got nothing as expected. Then I tried to read the two of you. My senses are clear, like always."

  “You expected otherwise?” Mitsuki ask.

  Brow furrowed, Oktara fidgeted with his hands. "There is something I must tell you. I picked up…emotions from Kaleeb. So I scanned him, using my limited empathic ability. What I sensed was…disturbing, to say the least."

  “But he’s an android,” Siv responded.

  No matter how sentient and humanlike they might be, androids didn't give off emotions or thoughts that could be read through extrasensory abilities. That was part of why they were so good at fighting the Krixis and so unsuccessful at negotiating ceasefires with them.

  “I’m aware of that,” Oktara said. “Nevertheless, Kaleeb… He is more than just an android. There is a presence within him, a malignant pres
ence. I’ve never sensed anything like it. I detected it within the sky-blade as well.”

  “No!” Silky hissed, his tone full of dread. “No, no, no. This is bad. So so bad.”

  “I do not know if that will help you in any way,” Oktara said, “but I thought it could be important.”

  “I appreciate the information,” Siv told him. “Silkster, what’s so bad about this?”

  “If an empath can detect an evil presence in Kaleeb, then it is bad on a galactic scale. And sir, I am not exaggerating that one bit.”

  “’Nevolence, what could possibly be that bad?”

  “Sir, I agreed to explain many things to you, from the cache of knowledge I recently unlocked, but we agreed it would be too much to handle at the moment, that we would discuss it all later.”

  "Oh! If this is related to the Fall of the Benevolence then—"

  “It’s as bad as bad news gets, sir.”

  “Do I need to know about it right now?”

  “It changes nothing at the moment, sir. But it does explain some things to me.”

  “Silkster, if it’s really that bad, then you need some way to publish this knowledge in case…in case you’re destroyed.”

  “I have already made arrangements, sir.”

  Mitsuki leaned over toward Siv. “You’ve been quiet for a while, and Silky cut me off our comm channel.”

  “That information means something to you, doesn’t it?” Oktara asked.

  “I cannot say,” Siv replied.

  Oktara nodded. “I understand.”

  “Silkster, restore Mitsuki’s access and catch her up.”

  “Restored, sir.”

  Siv watched Mitsuki’s face blanch as Silky caught her up on what they had discussed.

  “Are you sure it doesn’t matter right now?” Mitsuki asked.

  “All it means for now,” Silky replied, “is that he’s more dangerous than we thought. Honestly, I wish that I had allowed you to kill him in the warehouse. Even if the sky-blade had then torn the two of you apart, it would have been worth it. And maybe you could have gotten lucky and killed it, too.”

  Siv and Mitsuki exchanged horrified glances but said nothing more. Siv was stunned. Kaleeb was so dangerous that Silky was willing to throw away their lives to see him ended? Kaleeb was just an android bounty hunter, how much damage could he possibly do that he could affect the entire galaxy? It just didn’t make sense.