This Starry Deep (13 page)

“Sorry it took me so long to think of it,” she said.

“No, I should’ve mentioned. Look, doesn’t matter, if we land.”

“We’ll land either way, won’t we?” she whispered to me.

I laughed and nodded, knowing everyone else would be wondering what could possibly be funny. Bee shook her head reproachfully at me but couldn’t hide her own grin. She’d picked up a taste for this madness fast.

We went down into the gravity well, ass first and blind. My HUD gave me approximate distances based on my earlier readings and I flipped us back around, hoping I was guessing right.

Close to right, at least. A little too low and way too fast, the ground rushed at us. We hadn’t built this bucket to fly in atmo at all. Never thought of having to land it on a planet, I figured the worst we’d have to do would involve a space docking.

I aimed for water and came in low, hoping to skip us to a stop and beach us before we kept going into whatever lay past. We hit with a bone-rattling thump and soared - thump, glide, thump, glide - until we hit land hard. Everyone, myself included, got thrown from where we were. Not from our seats, we were still strapped in: the seats themselves ripped free from the floor.

It hurt like hell, but we stopped moving. We had landed.

Chapter 2
1
– Mud

THE
DOZIER
LOOMED at the edge of my scanners. I didn’t want to get much closer without a fully formed plan. Their sensors outstripped mine, so if I could see them, even just barely, they could pinpoint me without breathing hard.

The best bet would be to go in presenting something much smaller than my ship. I hated GravPacks, didn’t carry one (though Dad wanted me to, and made sure I’d been trained on them), so that was right out. I did have a standard EVA suit, and they had small pressure jets but worked best short range. No, I needed a diversion.

Then it hit me. A diversion, my EVA suit, and a few munitions. Easy. I set myself a course in the other direction, looking for a few big rocks. Nudging them back toward the direction of the
Dozier
rattled my seat a bit but worked fine.

The rocks drifted off and would reach the shield range of the
Dozier
in about a day. Not fast enough by half. But before I tried to speed them up I’d have to be outside. My ship sat outside of their scan range, so I put it in a hold-and-wait pattern. The power would be on minimum but hot enough to leap to a full burn in seconds if I whistled.

My EVA suit was clumsy and annoying, but a thinsuit didn’t have any propulsion to it. Once in the EVA, I had to find a way to secure my bags in such a way that they wouldn’t tear free. Sadly, with only one person this proved to be the hardest part of the plan to date. Couldn’t leave the bag, though, even if it would’ve made life easier. Assuming Mom and/or Dad was being held by the Gov against their will, chances were high there would be some blowing up of things to be done. Can’t do that with no munitions. So they came with me in two bags strapped to my body.

The bags hung badly and got in my way, but I couldn’t throw them onto my back because I’d need to put the pressure jets there. I holstered one sonic pistol on the inside of the EVA suit, and a second along the leg of the suit itself. The outside one had a much larger stock-and trigger-assembly, built for the clumsy, or those with pressure-gloved hands.

I kept the helmet of the suit kinked so I wouldn’t start running down my air. This was all routine stuff, annoying but easy enough. The rest of the plan got worse as it went. I did a final systems check on the ship and then on my bags. The rocks drifted the right way, the ship felt steady, nothing left but to do it.

My helmet hissed and flooded with slightly less humid air than I liked. I didn’t need my goggles yet, but a half-step down in atmo mix would make it last longer. I sniffed deeply to get used to the annoying tang this suit produced. I’d have to strip down the whole suit to fix it and never found the time. One of those problems that’s only noticeable on the rare occasions I used the suit. Easy to forget. Until I was in the suit, and then it became a priority. Probably a hose seal somewhere, nothing life threatening, just annoying.

I realized I was stalling. To hell with that. The airlock cycled around me and I checked my readings. The armband on my EVA suit read fine, I could control the ship on a limited basis from it. Enough to get this job done.

Outside the ship, I hit the pressure jets and floated quickly over to the rocks. I grabbed one and used the jets to start turning it. Over-rotated and I had to maneuver it back a bit. There we go. I faced my body away from my ship with the rock between us.

I hit the remote trigger and closed my eyes. No noise, of course, but a flash of light and I was set spinning and hurtling toward the
Dozier
. A few more flashes and there were a lot more rocks, all of them smaller now, speeding more or less the same way. I hoped my impromptu meteor shower worked.

At least for part of the trip, clinging to a rock would get me a bit of the way in unnoticed, but the
Dozier
would have shields that these rocks would dust against. The rest of the way, I’d have to manage it alone. Assuming I could get past the shields myself.

My EVA suit had a Gov tag on it, legal and everything, so the shields should part for me, but they’d also log my entrance. I could bet on that being strange enough that they’d investigate quickly. So I had to ditch the tag. Which is where phase three of my plan came in.

As the rocks and I got closer to the
Dozier
, the pressure jets on my EVA suit fired, changing course for the rock I clung to and bumping against others along the way. Then I stripped out of my EVA suit, reslung my equipment bags across my chest, and proceeded to rip the bulky suit and smash it as best I could with rocks I found. My thinsuit kept me fine, and the backup remote for my ship came online fine. Systems still checked. We were just heading out of my ship’s scanner range, but while it could still see my rock garden, I had my ship relay data on us. Everything was drifting right where I wanted it.

Everything approached the shield limit of the
Dozier
. I held my breath as the leading rocks turned to dust against those invisible shields. Me, the rock I clung to, and the EVA suit, ruined and held tight, slid right by. In that second the
Dozier
logged our approach. I kicked off the rock hard, leaving the EVA suit on it.

If everything went as planned, they would soon get a rock hard against their hull. It wouldn’t do any damage, but they’d wonder how it got there, go check, and find the suit. That’d match the log. Then they’d waste a few hours checking and rechecking where the suit came from and where the person in it had vanished to. The suit’s condition should make them assume the worst.

By the time they straightened it out it would be too late. If everything else went right. That felt like a mighty big “if” as I drifted toward a side hatch on the ship. I couldn’t just blow the hatch or the entrance scanner. Either one would bring everyone in the ship with a weapon running right for me. I had to be sneaky.

I reached the hatch and grabbed it tight, looking over the scanner. It’d take an ID tag at close range or an input security code. Both would be logged, of course, and I needed to come inside in a way they couldn’t trace back to me. So I detached the scanner plate itself and let it sit there, wires stretched like umbilicals.

A few tools from one of my bags and I rerouted power to bypass this plate. They wouldn’t notice the shunt for a while, long enough for me to work. Once the plate sat lifeless, nothing stopped me from grabbing the wires that fed the data channel back to the server that would do checks against the plate input and allow the door to open or not. I put those input wires into my own scanner and fed it a bit of test data. Routine stuff that wouldn’t be noticed. Everything came back green.

Perfect. They weren’t in a heightened security setting. Grabbing the door wires instead, I sent current through them. Too much and the doors would detect a problem and go into full lockdown. Too little and they’d try to alarm the doors with a malfunction flag. I tried to remember the exact settings for Gov hatch charges. I knew it was one of two numbers and took a stab in the dark.

I sent the current and waited a second. Then another. Nothing, not a twitch. That was bad. Over or under? Under. The door would flag a malfunction the second I hooked it back up. But I had to hook it back up or they’d notice that, too, the same as a malfunction flag. I’d screwed myself.

I sent another power burst and the doors twitched and the hatch cycled open. I hooked the scanner pad back up, taking care to leave one of the power couplings frayed and loose. Just loose enough so it shouldn’t engage. They’d notice, but with the EVA suit causing them mysteries, they might not notice for a while.

The inner airlock was much easier to bypass. It assumed you’d gotten in by normal means. A quick rewire and power shunt and the air cycled and hatch opened. As it did, I suddenly wondered if anyone would be on the other side at the wrong second.

Too late to worry, and thankfully no one was there. I retracted my thinsuit’s helmet and put my goggles on to keep my eyes moist. I hated this air mix, but I was pretty sure someone would notice if I changed it.

I was inside one of the Gov’s bigger battle cruisers, unnoticed for now. I felt like it shouldn’t be that easy. I stood there and looked around, finding a dark corner to crouch in. My thinsuit blended colors with the wall, as did my face. The needles hurt, but the needles always hurt.

Something felt off. Sure my intrusion was smooth, but this really did feel too smooth. I hid and considered my options. Now that I’d managed to get inside I had to locate Mom at least. I would also need a map of the ship. Both these things would be in the same place: any decent-sized communications room. Which were all, of course, staffed and secure.

Getting in kept proving to be the easy part. Though I couldn’t work out why everything felt off. The hallways seemed too deserted for a ship this big out of dock. What could be causing that, when no alert was ringing?

Oh. Right. Mom. Or Dad, or both. If they’d escaped, then the ship wouldn’t want to go to high alert and give them the chaos as a cover. By staying at normal running mode, except for shifting personnel out of the way, they could hope to lull them into a false sense of security.

I loved that anyone thought that idea would work. But it really was how the Gov thought this stuff through. Didn’t mean I was right, though. The theory held water for now, but I’d need proof. Easiest way to get proof would be to find my parents.

Which took me right back to finding a comm room. That wasn’t exactly hard. Any ship this size is required to have at least one comm room per level, if not two. I grabbed my sonic pistol and slapped the access plate with my other hand.

My entire plan was to go in shooting and lock down the room. I could secure it on the way out and go from there. Messy but it’d get the job done, and I felt like I was wasting time doing anything else.

The door opened and I raised the gun, aiming it into the room. My finger twitched against the trigger and I felt the sonics go off, rumbling into the open space. Right into the sonic-shielded plate of the guards posted inside.

Didn’t expect that, but it confirmed that at least one parent was out and about. They’d try for the comm room, Mom had done it once. So they must’ve staffed them with guards, hoping to catch her. They weren’t expecting me. Not sure if that’s good or bad.

Sonics wouldn’t work and now I had to secure the room, and fast, before they could radio me in. Best way would be to leap right at them. So I did. Tackled one of the guards, shoving him down into the other. A sonic shot going off right against his helmet seam blew it open and rattled his brains enough to take him down. Which left his friend and the comm techs.

The techs were easy, two shots and they were out. My arm started to feel rubbery from the bits of bounce back the sonic pistol gave off. The second guard got a good whack in and my head bounced off the desk. I cursed and punched him in the helmet, which hurt me more than him.

Changing tactics, I grabbed his helmet and smashed it against the desk a few times until it cracked open. Then I tried punching him again. Much better. He dropped and I brought myself up into a crouch. They were all out, but not for long.

I slapped the door panel and shut myself in with them. I started to play with the comm panel. Not long now until I could find what I was after.

Chapter 22 - Jonah

I GOT EVERYONE out of the ship as fast as possible. Not very fast, truthfully, considering we needed to roll our chairs over with us in them and then fight broken straps. The hatch, too, gave us trouble, bent and snarled, but I cut it open with my blaster and we could taste fresh air again.

Bercuser. The fog drifted around us and I remembered the first - and only - time I’d stood on this planet. Years ago, not long after we had adopted the Newt, Shae and I pulled a mission to “The Strangest Planet in the System,” as they’d dubbed it. No one had understood an ounce of what went on here, no one dared to land and find out. So they sent us. Turned out they were a nice bunch of folk, once you got used to them. Pretty much like any other.

I tried to remember the place and kept coming up blank on finer details. Too many worlds, too many years spent dealing with problems just like this one, and everything started to both run together and shuffle to the back.

Albertoth. The name surfaced at last. Albertoth - the guy in charge, last time I stood around on these hills. He was old then and certainly not in charge now, but it’d be a place to start.

Bee, Kem, and the rest were standing around, whispering to each other and pointing at things. I gathered them up and started walking. Instantly, they wanted to know where we were going. I just pointed and kept moving. We needed to find a native and build from that.

We came across someone soon enough and he took us up the chain, knowing who Albertoth was, if not knowing the man personally. He had a friend who knew someone who knew someone, and so on up the ladder. An hour or so later we got out of an old, underused transport and stood at the door to Albertoth’s old office. I remembered the doors fondly. Large things, made of metal and etched to resemble the fog itself.

I had taken the time to catch up on things, as much as possible, while we went. Albertoth had retired as leader. Amusing to me, since all the leader of Bercuser seemed to do was listen to other people who told him the future, and a few who tried to predict the past, and wrangle sense out of them. I suppose the work bore out to be far more frustrating than it looked.

He’d been replaced by a guy named Tonth. They told me Tonth judged very similar to Albertoth, but I would have to see for myself. Everyone I talked to, it also seemed, knew there was an invasion coming. They weren’t scared, though. No, they were waiting to see what happened, with the calm certainty that an answer would be found and would reveal itself as events unfolded. I’d have liked to have had their confidence.

Instead, I had a growing lump of worry in my gut that we were wasting time. I didn’t share it with anyone. I couldn’t see how it would help. I followed our guide up into Tonth’s office. Tonth, unlike his predecessor, preferred a shine of glamour. Ornate carvings littered the wall, his desk, and his chair. Lights sparkled and bowls of fog glimmered on various flat surfaces.

Tonth himself had an air of nobility about him. This was a man used to being listened to. I hoped he was also used to listening. I bowed, the standard formal greeting on Bercuser, and Tonth nodded, gesturing with an open hand for me to speak.

“Head Seer Tonth,” I addressed him, “I am Jonah Madison. In the older days I spoke at length with Albertoth, a wise and gentle man, truly great, and today I come before you, seeking—”

He cut me off with a grim smile and a nod. “You come to tell us to flee, do you not?”

“I do, Head Seer, truly your powers are great.”

“It does not,” he said, warming up, “take great power to look up, Mister Madison.”

“Please,” I said, giving him another bow, “call me Jonah.”

“Sit then, Jonah,” he said. More chairs were brought in and shoved around and we all sat, the office growing cramped with both furniture and people. “Now, tell me how you intend to save our people.”

“Uhm, well, Head Seer—”

“Tonth, please. We shall be friends and consider each other equals.”

I nodded at him and continued, “I’m not sure there is a plan. Do you have enough ships to evacuate the planet?”

“No, of course not.”

“No,” I agreed, “not many do. Can you make Bercuser shift orbits again, or do you know if it will do so soon?”

“None of us,” he told me, a stern edge creeping into his voice, “can predict such things.”

“I was afraid of that,” I admitted.

“However,” he continued, “that doesn’t mean that some do not try.”

“Does that mean you can or you can’t?” I asked, not sure where he was going but trying to follow along.

“It means that some claim to be able to. They are not right as often as they wish, but nor are they always wrong.”

“So, they guess, and at times they’re lucky and right?”

“You cast doubts on all our abilities with your reductive speech,” Tonth said, growing cold again.

“Your forgiveness,” I said hurriedly, “I only meant to express disappointment.”

“Disappointment that we are not perfect?” he asked. “We never claimed to be so. It is others who see us as charlatans and feel that we should we should be perfect lest we reveal ourselves as frauds. They accept no margin into their lives, no belief, no wisdom. We only—”

“Tonth,” I said, interrupting him. It was a risky move if I wanted to stay in his good graces, but I couldn’t sit and listen to him make speeches. “We don’t have time. Honestly. We don’t. Can we discuss a plan?”

“Yes,” he said with an air of seriousness, “of course. A plan. We have many ships, though not enough to evacuate the planet, as I said.”

“Which is fine, I wasn’t thinking of evacuating this planet. If your seers think there is a reasonable chance the planet will orbit shift in a few days, then we should use that.”

“And simply wait? Is that wise?” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. A minute ago he’d seemed all about trusting the predictions.

“Not really, but it’s the choice we have. I do, however, want to use your ships.” And here was the gamble.

“For?”

“I want to send them to Trasker Four to evacuate as many people from there as possible. If you land them here and the orbit shift happens, they’ll be safe, as will the people of Bercuser.”

“To take in such refugees, they would not know our customs. However, we have long felt a time would come when our lands would need sharing. This must be why. Yes, we have lands set aside for a group of outsiders.”

“You do?”

“Our seers,” he said with a small grin, “are not kept just for show. There were some who thought the invasion and the refugee problem would be linked. They were right. Some thought the invaders themselves would be the refugees. I see now they were wrong in the details.”

“Happens to the best of us,” I said quickly, pushing on. “Now, with enough ships we can evacuate some folk and bring them here.”

“How will we get to a planet that you are telling me is being invaded as we speak?”

“Landing will be the tricky part, yeah.” I admitted. “But I can let the military know and they can protect your ships going in and out of orbit, and direct you to land where it’s clear. This isn’t a great plan, and there will be a lot of good people lost, but it’s the only plan I have.”

“And you will lead these forces yourself?” Tonth looked at me as if he knew something. Then again, maybe he did. Even if he didn’t, he could claim to later. I didn’t put much stock in seeing the future, and maybe he was right: maybe I failed to look at the big picture the way he did. I had my own way of seeing the future, though, with plans and strategy.

“Not quite.” Two words and the whole room burst into babble. The kids I brought with me started to yell, as did Tonth’s advisors in the room. Everyone who shouldn’t have been talking was. The two of us who actually needed to be talking sat silent and looked at each other. I turned and looked at my guys. I gave them the same hard glare I used to give my team when they knew better then to be doing something stupid. Same as back then, people shut up.

“Some of my people will be with me. The rest will go with your ships to help guide them and collect their planet-mates,” I told Tonth. He nodded.

“I expected as much,” he said.

“Of course,” I inclined my head to show respect, and then got down to brass tacks. “How many ships do you have and how many people can they hold?”

The rest of the meeting was simple planning. We managed to work out a decent number of cargo ships, each capable of holding a thousand people if they weren’t too comfortable. They’d survive the trip, and that remained the important part. Work began as soon as possible on launching those ships, knowing no one had much time at all. They weren’t the fastest ships, and if the planet was going to orbit shift in two days - never mind that an invasion that could wipe out the planet was already attacking them - we’d need every minute we could scrape up.

I pulled Bee aside and told her she wasn’t going back to Trasker Four, she was staying with me. A curt nod was all that she allowed herself, but I could tell she’d hoped it would be that way. Steelbox came over and asked me the same thing.

“I wanna stick with you,” he said, his lack of neck robbing him of the ability to nod well.

“Yeah, well, uhm, Steelbox? Do you have a real name, kid? Steelbox is a bit—”

“Steve Bokonski,” he said with a shrug. “So, you know.”

“Steelbox. Right. Sure,” I told him, “the thing is, I need you going with the others. We don’t have many people from your world to help and we need you to show them where to land and convince people to get in and go.”

“I think they’ll be willing to go even if none of us try to convince them. If your planet was getting blown up around you, how much talkin’ would it take to get you to leave to safety?”

Damn it, he had a good point. I just didn’t want to drag too many people into this mess. Bee would come with me and I had planned on getting Kem as well. Two tech heads never hurt anyone, and they’d be more use to me than to the Bercusans, who had their own tech teams.

I just couldn’t think of a good reason to say no to Steelbox. I shrugged at him and told him I’d think about it. Really, I decided to ask Bee her thoughts. She knew him, they had been in the same gang.

As I approached her, a tall, reedy guy came up to us. His eyes seemed to refocus and he started intensely at me.

“Can I help you?” I asked, knowing he must be a Bercusan Seer.

“I must go with you,” he said, his voice solemn.

“Yeah, the rescue ships are over there. This isn’t one of them,” I told him, and I patted our new loaner ship with one hand. Bee and Kem had been familiarizing themselves with it. They were both now stopped, watching with interest. “I need to get back to work, but good of you to help.”

“You misunderstand me,” he said. I was afraid of that. “I need to come with you, specifically. I have foreseen it.”

“Can I ask why?”

“So that you may die.” This guy didn’t know how to sell himself at all.

“So if you don’t come with me I won’t die?” I asked. “Because that isn’t a great reason to bring you along, I hope you realize.”

“But you must. I have seen it. You must die, and I must be along.”

“I really don’t think this is going to work out. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” I turned back to Bee and started to ask about Steelbox when my new best friend grabbed my shoulder.

“Truly, Mister Madison, I need to accompany you and your crew,” he said with all the inflection of a corpse.

“Jonah. Call me Jonah. Or Captain Madison. Never Mister. And my answer was no, and it was final.” I turned back to Bee and Kem. Kem nodded when I mouthed a question at him, asking if the guy had gone.

That done, I put the idea of Steelbox joining the crew to them. They didn’t mind so I gave in, deciding they needed more faces from home. They also promised to ensure that he’d keep in line. Kem seemed to think Steelbox would make a fine addition for reasons he couldn’t quite put into words.

That settled, I left them to finish the preparations and went around to check how the rescue ships were going. Everything seemed to be moving smoothly. It took a while, but soon enough they were ready to go.

Now all I needed was a plan for us. I’d get there, though. I felt confident about that. We’d get back into the void and then go for Shae. Stopping the invasion along the way would be icing.

I headed back to our ship and saw Bee, Kem, and Steelbox waiting for me. Stowing my gear quickly, I sat in the pilot’s seat and prepared us for liftoff. I brought the engines to life and we rattled and rumbled our way toward leaving the gravity well. Just before we launched ourselves up and through the atmosphere, I heard a door close. I turned my head and there was the stranger from earlier, sitting quickly in a seat and buckling himself in.

“Bee?” I asked, jerking my head back toward our new guest.

“He came back with a letter from Tonth saying we had to take him. Says his name is Olivet.”

“Great. Thanks for the warning,” I told her as I kept goosing the engines to life.

“Hey, you weren’t here and he had official documents demanding his inclusion,” she snapped at me.

“No, you’re right. You made the right choice. I just don’t like him.” I ignored the presence of Olivet as best I could and concentrated on takeoff. The engines roared to full heat and we started to lift. As always, my body felt compressed back in my seat and I wanted to close my eyes and whoop it up. I loved this. I always had and always would.