PROLOGUEBETTING THE FARM ON A HUNCHNICOLA MAFALDA
As we left the atmosphere and the Frontier Chic powered upwards, a local gunboat hailed us.
“Hello,” I sent in the local language. “I’m honoured. I wasn’t expecting you to break out the big guns just to say goodbye.”
Although lacking interstellar capability, the Jzatian gunboat easily massed twice our size. It had the clunky, functional look of something whose builders had bolted it together with scant regard for aesthetics. The hull was a metal cube sporting at each vertex bouquets of large-bore thruster nozzles. Weapons emplacements and targeting sensors crusted five of its six faces.
“Nicola Mafalda?” the gunboat’s commanding officer replied. “This is not a ceremonial visit. You have a member of our diplomatic service on board.”
I checked the manifest. “Indra Petroq? Yes, she’s joining the Jzat ambassadorial delegation to the Continuance fleet.”
“Please be aware that we would like to take your passenger into custody.”
“Has she committed a crime?”
“That is none of your concern.” Gun mounts swivelled to target us. “You have one minute to signal your compliance.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fifty-five seconds.”
“Are you threatening me?” I couldn’t keep the exasperation from my tone. “Seriously?”
The Frontier Chic and I had come here to deliver our passenger. The rulers of Jzat had given permission for a physicist from the Thousand Arks of the Continuance to visit and study the Grand Mechanism. It would be the first time the Jzat had allowed a human within a hundred thousand kilometres of the thing, and apparently was a great honour.
The physicist was a young protégé who went by the name Orlando Walden. Out of the goodness of my heart, I’d allowed him to be present on the command deck as we approached Jzat—and he had seemed enraptured by the images of the Mechanism displayed on the bridge’s various monitors and screens.
“What do you think, Walden?”
The kid turned to look at me. He was tall but slight, with dark eyeshadow and black nail polish that only served to highlight the hollowness of his cheeks. He wore a collarless charcoal-coloured jacket that did up to the neck, and had scraped his long, dirty-blond hair into a ponytail. He had festooned the backs of his hands with smart tattoos simultaneously displaying newsfeeds, monitoring his vital signs, running through a variety of computer games and sims, and predicting the local weather conditions on Jzat.
“It’s fascinating,” he said, managing not to stammer.
Born and raised on the arks of the Continuance, he claimed this was his first trip beyond the confines of the fleet, and when we touched down on the planet, it would be his first experience of both natural gravity and natural sunlight.
Upon landing, we’d handed Orlando Walden over to a delegation of Jzat scientists eager to whisk him off to study their big hoop. The poor kid’s eyes were wide like saucers.
After that, we stayed for a few days as arrangements were made for our return journey. Then, once Petroq and a handful of other passengers were aboard, we began our return journey, bringing them back to the fleet, where they would take over the position of Jzat’s ambassadorship to the Human Continuance. It wasn’t a glamorous assignment for us but working for the Vanguard wasn’t all adventure and excitement; sometimes, you just had to swallow your pride and act like a taxi service.
“We cannot allow the individual in question to proceed with her journey. If you refuse to surrender her, we will destroy you.”
“Now, wait a minute—”
“Forty-five seconds.”
“You know who I represent, right?”
“You represent the Continuance.”
“Yes, the Continuance.” I spoke as if addressing a particularly truculent child. “A thousand arks, each the size of a small nation, and each packing enough defensive firepower to wreck a planet. More specifically, this planet.”
“Nevertheless, we must insist. We cannot allow Ambassador Petroq to contact the Rav’nah Abelisk.”
I was about to ask who the fuck the Rav’nah Abelisk was, when the Frontier Chic’s sensors registered a huge gravity pulse. It moved across the system like the ripple of a boulder dropped into a pond.
“What the hell was that?” I tracked it back to its source. “Did that come from the Mechanism?”
I focused my sensors on the research vessels swarming like midges around the Mechanism’s black sphere and its attendant hoop. The Jzat had been studying the artifact since the dawn of their history, and had several long-established scientific stations dotted at various points around the hoop’s four-hundred-and-seventy-kilometre circumference. “Have you idiots finally found a way to start it up?”
“Uh…” For a second the officer’s confidence wavered. Then he pulled himself together and said, “Our activities are none of your concern. Do you have a response to our demands?”
“I have.”
“And your answer?”
“You should go fuck yourselves.”
“Very well. We have noted your intransigence. Firing missile.”
“Wait—”
“Missile away.”
Alarms screamed as the torpedo established a target lock on the Frontier Chic’s hull. The captain’s warnings had only been a formality; I was certain his orders had always been to destroy me, and he would use the transcript of our conversation as a way of covering his ass in any ensuing investigation.
“You’re a real dick,” I sent. “You know that, right?”
The weapon’s profile suggested a fusion warhead, but I had no desire to stick around to see if that guess was correct. I told the Frontier Chic to fire-up his flick generators, and he opened a wormhole into the substrate. The silver sphere glimmered into existence between his bow and the incoming missile, blocking line-of-sight. Momentarily disorientated, the weapon raked the heavens with its sensors, attempting to reacquire target lock—but we had already leapt into the buffeting fires of the substrate, and set the portal to collapse behind us.
Unfortunately, we weren’t quick enough. As my eyes gazed into the roiling chaos and my mind began to feed data to the navigational array, the nuclear-tipped missile slipped through the collapsing jump point and detonated metres from our stern.
* * *
I was unconscious for a time. Upon waking, the first thing I became aware of was that I appeared to be weightless and drifting. Everything hurt and my skin itched like sunburn. I opened my eyes. The only illumination on the bridge came from electrical fires in the ducts and on the main console. If the gravity wasn’t working, every system must be dead. Nothing focuses the mind like existential peril. When I managed to get my heartbeat under control, I began to take stock of the situation. It was an old habit: If in doubt, run a diagnostic.
Firstly, as far as I could tell from the lack of tell-tales visible on the instrument consoles, the ship was totally inert. No thrust, no lights. Not even any air coming through the vents. The additional shielding around the bridge had kept me from the worst effects of the heat and blast. But if the nausea and headache I was experiencing were any indication, a lot of the radiation had got through, which meant I only had a few hours or minutes before I succumbed to the final messy and agonising phases of radiation poisoning.
My heart felt like it was thumping against the inside of a steel ribcage. Somehow, I had to keep this bag of flesh functioning long enough to get back to civilisation and figure out what the hell had happened to us. Not knowing at that point how badly the ship might be damaged, I thought it unwise to open the hatch and attempt to access the medical supplies in the crew lounge. For all I knew, there might be a vacuum on the other side of the door. But without medical supplies, I’d soon be dead.
There was an emergency locker beneath the navigator’s couch. I pressed my thumb against the mechanism, and it clicked open. Inside, I found a lightweight pressure suit, a variety of tools and equipment, and a firearm. These were supplies designed to allow the navigator to survive on a planetary surface in the event of a crash landing. They were all robust and easily portable. But the one that interested me most right now was the pressure suit—or more specifically, the med panel on its left forearm. I struggled into the garment. It was a difficult process given the lack of gravity and my radiation sickness, but eventually I got both arms and legs into the right places and managed to pull up the long zip at the front. Closing this activated its systems, and I felt it tighten strategically around my frame. I didn’t bother to put the gloves on. It was easier to operate the med panel controls without them. Fighting down another bout of nausea, I scrolled through the available menu options until I found: SOLAR FLARE EXPOSURE.
My hand pricked as the suit inserted a cannula. Then slowly, as I floated there breathing heavily, my sickness began to subside. The drugs the suit was pumping into my system seemed to be helping, so I added a shot of adrenalin, just to really perk things up.
The view from the bridge’s overarching window showed only a scattering of cold, dispassionate stars. If you don’t have access to star charts, one part of the universe looks remarkably like any other. I could have been anywhere within a half century of the Continuance fleet. And stuck as I was, even a single light year had suddenly become an unbridgeable gulf. Even if I knew which direction to send out a radio signal, and had enough juice to power the transmitter, I’d probably be years dead by the time my request for help had crawled its way across the intervening void. There would be no rescue. If I was going to get out of this, I could only rely on myself. Which meant unless I could pull a solution out of my ass, I was pretty much fucked.
Floating helplessly, I looked around the cold, dead bridge and felt less than optimistic. I’d never been the kind of person to believe things happen for a reason. I mean, I understood cause and effect and I knew our current predicament was due to some asshole firing a nuke up the ship’s butt; I just didn’t think fate played any part in our lives. Things happened because they happened; there was no big plan to it all. The laws of physics kept the planets spinning and the generators generating; all the rest was a chaotic throw of the dice. Life was meaningless and scarce, and if I wanted to save mine, I’d better start coming up with answers. The drugs in the spacesuit would keep me alive for a few hours, but this whole wreck was probably radioactive as fuck, and the air purifiers weren’t working, which meant I’d have to rely on the recycled air in the suit. That might keep me breathing for a couple of weeks before the accumulated toxins overwhelmed the suit’s scrubbers, but I’d probably die of thirst or medical complications long before that happened.
The remaining hours of my life seemed to have turned into one of those Choose Your Own Adventure games—but one where the outcome of every choice was a shitty death. I eyed the handgun in the emergency locker, wondering if I’d ever have the courage to take the quick, clean exit.
Probably not.
If I were suicidal, I could just blow the hatches and yeet myself out into space without fastening my visor. In this situation, there were no shortages of ways to die. Dehydration, starvation, suffocation, radiation sickness… What I needed was a one-in-a-million, get-out-of-jail-free card.
But where could I find such a thing?
I ran through a list of my assets:
•A dead spaceship
•A pressure suit
•A gun
Several passengers, any of whom might be injured or even dead.
I had a thought then. Not really a thought, per se; more of a notion. The vestigial tickle of an idea. I didn’t want to fully think it out in case I jinxed it; in case, by allowing myself to believe, even for a moment, I might collapse the wave function and ruin everything. Carefully keeping my mind as calm and blank as possible, I fastened my visor and attached the suit’s gauntlets. Then, I kicked over to the hatch and pulled the manual release.
Air howled around me, and I had to brace in the hatchway for the handful of seconds it took the atmosphere on the bridge to wail away into the depressurised spaces of the rest of the ship. I had squandered a major resource. I had gone from being trapped in a room to being trapped in a suit. Against all common sense, I appeared to be betting the farm on a hunch, and I just hoped the pay-off would be worth it.
Warnings sounded as I pulled myself down the companionway to the crew lounge. The levels of radiation back here were scary. The lack of gravity meant I had to use my arms and legs to propel myself forwards, and brake when I reached a flat surface. They already ached, and the combination of exertion and weightlessness brought back my nausea. I swallowed it down and swore under my breath. The last thing I wanted to do was throw up in a space helmet. I felt like a monkey falling out of a tree, with all the deep-seated hindbrain panic that implied.
I grabbed a handhold and swung myself into the crew lounge. Two corpses lay adrift in the centre of the room. Dylan Pierce was a Continuance citizen who’d spent time on Jzat studying the hot-water geysers in its northern hemisphere. His harness appeared to have snapped, allowing the force of the explosion to throw him forwards into the bulkhead, where his skull had caved inwards on impact. Blood was leaking from his ears and nose. The second dead body belonged to our passenger, Indra Petroq. Her six fur-covered limbs floated outstretched, and she appeared whole, aside from a green froth that issued from her lips. Either she’d suffered some sort of internal haemorrhage, or she’d taken her own life via suicide pill when capture seemed inevitable. But why the fuck would a member of the Jzat secret service be mortally afraid of capture by their own navy? Gently, I pushed them both aside. I didn’t need puzzles right now. What I needed lay further back, in their luggage, and I could only pray it remained intact.
You see, I knew Indra was a thief. Or at least, she worked for thieves. The Jzat hadn’t managed to crack the secret of substrate travel, but they had somehow come into possession of a few personal flick terminals. These were small, backpack-sized devices that the Continuance issued its ambassadors, to enable them to flick back to the fleet in the event of a crisis. Once activated, they created a human-sized wormhole through the substrate and if that link wasn’t more than a dozen or so light years in length, a person could step through without too much buffeting from the cold fires of the under-verse. It was risky, and the Vanguard forbade their use except in the direst circumstances. And somehow, Indra Petroq had obtained one. The Frontier Chic had detected it the instant she stepped aboard and would have reported its existence to the Vanguard the second we reached the Continuance. I had no idea why she had been carrying it, but now, however it had come into her possession, that backpack represented my only hope of survival.
I didn’t know how far we were from the fleet. In theory, the range should have been enough, but our tumble through the substrate may have taken us in the wrong direction. For all I knew, we were light years beyond the portal’s safe operational range. However, given the alternatives, I wasn’t about to quibble about safety. I’d rather let the chaos of the substrate instantly disperse my being as a molecule-thick slick than suffer through the radiation sickness gripping my body. With trembling hands, I extracted the bag from Indra’s locker. Inside, I found a football-sized lump of smart matter. If I could connect it to a power source, I’d be in business. I didn’t know where I was, but I knew the coordinates of the fleet. All I had to do was get there.
I looked around the cabin for something I could use to provide enough electricity to boot up the portal. Unfortunately, everything still appeared to be dead.
The only thing with any power at all was my suit. I had squandered the remaining air in the ship, and I needed the suit to breathe. The chances of me living more than a few hours were slim, but I still felt reluctant to start messing with my wearable life-support system. Then, in my head, I thought I heard the Frontier Chic chuckling. Radiation poisoning’s a bitch, his laugh seemed to say. If the portal doesn’t work, you’d be better off suffocating.
Which was a fair point.
Right now, I really had nothing to lose. I opened the pocket on the suit’s forearm that contained the tools I’d need to strip the batteries. And it was only then that I realised something that made me want to kick myself. This hadn’t been the only suit in the locker. Of course it hadn’t. That would have been like equipping an ocean liner with a single lifeboat. There were enough suits in there for all the passengers, which meant there were ample batteries for my purposes, and I wouldn’t have to risk hypoxia while I worked.
Cursing my sluggish, addled thoughts, I gathered up the portal and kicked my way back to the bridge, where I retrieved the suits and extracted their power cells. The process took almost an hour because I kept having to stop to rest. My head felt wadded with steel wool and my stomach seemed to have become home to a family of aggressive eels.
By the time I had the cells connected and ready to plug into the smart matter, my blue eyes and gums had started to bleed, and the skin on my left arm had swollen until it pressed tightly against the inner lining of the suit. It felt like a lump of burnt meat, and I was glad I couldn’t take the suit off and see the damage for myself. I was also glad the suit’s hygiene facilities were as efficient as they were, as I seemed to have lost control of certain of my bodily functions.
I had rigged a wire from each battery and braided those wires into a single cable, which I now gripped in my gauntleted hand.
Well, here goes nothing.
I pushed the exposed copper tip into the smart-matter ball and pushed back until I bumped against the cabin wall, and then clung to one of the handholds while I waited to see if my plan would work.
I think I may have blacked out for a moment. I don’t remember seeing the football of smart matter expand into the two-metre-wide silver sphere of a flick portal. My eyes lost focus, and when reality reasserted itself, the sphere was there waiting. My head swam and I knew with a sudden cold certainty that Death had me in its bony grip. If I didn’t move now, I never would. So, summoning every milligram of determination, I kicked away from the wall, intending to let my momentum carry me towards the centre of the portal, and whatever lay on the other side.
I was only halfway across the room when the lights flickered on.
The ship’s power was back!
“Nicola?”
“Chic!”
“What are you doing?”
“Getting the fuck out of here.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I have to.”
“But I can’t navigate without you.”
“Can you even move?”
“Engines will be back online in a few hours.”
“I won’t last a few hours. I’m dying, Chic.”
I was within a metre of the safety of the portal when the suit stiffened around me, and its synthetic voice announced: Emergency survival protocol activated.
I tried to struggle, but the suit held me immobile. I shouted, “What are you doing?”
The Chic said, “I’m sorry, Nicola, I have no choice.”
Gravity returned, and I fell to the deck. At least one rib cracked on impact and my vision went red. The pain was intense. A dull roar drowned out all other sounds.
I really was dying.
Survival protocol executing in five seconds.
“You have to let me go.”
“I can’t do that, Nicola.”
Two seconds.
“But—”
One.
The helmet sealed itself with a loud snick.
I didn’t even feel it sever my spinal column.
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