//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Under Free Flag // by twillale //------------------------------// CHAPTER IV Quivis beatus, versa rota fortunæ, ante vesperum potest esse miserrimus. Anyone who is prosperous may by the turn of fortune's wheel become most wretched before evening. —Ammianus Marcellinus, Historia I dream of a blue horse looking at me through a safety glass. What the fuck, subconscious mind? ... “—ris. Eris!” Nngh, just let me sleep for five more—ow! “Can you hear me? Wake up!” Yeah, yeah, I can he—augh! Goddamnit! “Hey! Wake-” “Slap me one more time and I’ll strangle you with my bare hands,” I snarl. There’s a long, relieved exhalation. “Thank the Gods. You okay?” I grunt an affirmative and release the offending wrist. The bridge is outlined in a weak red glow; seems the emergency lights have kicked in. Ugh, I feel as if I’d had a few drinks too many yesterday. Right, let’s see. Lying on floor, nothing hurts too bad and no shiny red tissue damage indicators, that’s good. That’s Ace’s ugly mug hovering above me. Also good, in a way. It’s dead quiet. Bad, bad, bad. With a start I realize I can’t even hear the drone of the adjustment thrusters, nor the singing of the hull as the sails shift in the wind. It’s dead quiet, and that unnerves me indescribably much more than any target lock alarm. I compress my mounting panic into a tiny knot in my stomach and turn to Ace. “What happened?” He looks haggard—even more than I remember—but he seems less tense. The lock-jawed attack dog posture has softened into his usual ornery naval officer imitation, and even with the worried scowl there are the embers of a smile touching his eyes. “We blew the Wall.” “What?” “Just as the geckos were about to get into proper direct-fire distance we caught a huge mass signature, so we took a gamble and jumped the Streamwall.” That annoying eye-twinkle is trying its best to evolve into an annoying smirk. My head still feels like someone’s just grabbed my ears and shaken my cranium like a drink mixer, so my thought processes aren’t exactly snappy, but that smirk always did get on my nerves. After a heroic mental effort and a few seconds of booting my sluggish brain back to work it’s still annoying, but damn it, it’s contagious. I feel the corners of my mouth twitching. “And we pulled it off?” “Almost flawlessly.” “Almost fl... We’re in offstream orbit?” “Planetside, actually.” The smirk is now a huge, shit-eating grin. “...and the G’s didn’t follow?” “No time to react. Probably the last thing they were expecting.” Oh, this is just too much. I burst out laughing, collapsing back against my command chair. Three days. Three fucking days and nights of pursuit and panic, and just as they’re about to hit us with a warhead we luck out on the most improbable damn escape in the universe? Oh Christ, this is great. That was probably all my good karma right there, for this life and the next. I’ll be reborn as a cockroach. Oh God, it feels good to laugh again. Laugh until my sides hurt, which isn’t very long, by the way. I quickly realize how utterly exhausted I am. I wipe the tears from my eyes with my sleeve and lean back to take in the scene. The bridge is pretty okay, all things considered. The Trickster was built for both grav and zero-G operation, so all the stations are fitted with every kind of strap and holster imaginable to keep stuff from flying about. I spy the lumbering form of faithful old Xavier, the first mate, applying a bandage to the head of the newest radar operator—Devi or Dewi something—other bridge crew similarly paired up and checking each other or stations for damage. The relief in the room is palpable, it’s like all the tension and fear went out the window with the sound of the engines. “How bad is it?” “What, the Trickster? Or the crew?” “All of it.” “Could be worse. Nothing we can’t fix, given time.” Uh-oh. “Did we lose anyone?” “One.” “Fuck.” I have to close my eyes for a second. “...who?” “Darnell, Stephanie. The new girl on the engineering crew. She wasn’t strapped in when we impacted.” “...God damn it.“ “Yeah.” Well, that certainly killed the mood. I remember Stephanie, vaguely. I try to get at least acquainted with everyone in my crew, but her I met only once or twice. Still, new girl or no, she is... was still one of us. I sigh deeply, and when I look up Ace is looking me over with an assessing stare. He tiredly waves his arm in the general direction of the quarters. “Go get some sleep, Eri. I’ll handle the immediate procedures.” The familiar sting of sibling rivalry makes its presence known in the back of my mind. “Why don’t you go? I can handle it just as well as you, and you know it.” He smiles at me in that really knowing manner which pisses me off to no end, and I’m sure he can tell exactly what’s going on in my head. “Yeah, I’m sure you can, sis. But you were awake just as long as me, and I didn’t have to keep the crew going with my mind-magic.” “Don’t call it ‘mind-magic’, you fucking superstitious luddite.” Okay, that was arguably weak, but it’s the best snark I could come up with at the moment. “Okay. But seriously, just go.” I try to stifle a yawn, fail miserably, and decide that maybe he’s right. This time. “...all right then. But just a few hours. You come wake me, okay?” “Sure. Sleep tight.” I wearily push myself to my feet and shuffle off the bridge and towards the sweet siren call of my bunk. * I squint at the time projection on the side of the bed. The little red numbers politely inform me that i’ve been asleep for seven hours. Seven damned hours. To hell with it all, he promised he’d wake me ‘after a few hours’, the bastard. I roll out of my bunk, wiggle out of whatever disgusting clothes I’m still wearing and stomp into the tiny shower cubicle in the tiny bathroom. Hey, being the captain has some perks. As the tickly combination of ultrasonics and fine mist blast the sweat and grime off my body, I’m slowly starting to feel alive again. Also less mad. It’s hard to be angry at someone for long when they’re doing nice things for you. I jump out of the cubicle before the drying program has finished, kick the dirty clothes littering the floor into a corner and rummage through the dull green storage compartments for a clean uniform and something to eat. Munching on the vaguely chocolate-flavoured chunk of calories that is a compressed nutrition bar I briskly make my way back to the bridge. The lights are back on, and Xavier is sitting down in the command seat, as I enter licking the final stains of ‘natural chocolate aromas’ off my fingers. You’d think that in the hundreds of years we’ve been making this stuff we’d be able to make it taste like real chocolate instead of sweetened cardboard, but hey, can’t have all the good things, I guess. It’s either spaceflight or realistic fake chocolate. They should’ve gone with the chocolate. Xavier, stickler that he is, gets out of the chair and salutes me as I enter. “Captain.” I wince, as I always do. “Please, Xavier, you carried me on your back when I was barely old enough to walk, can’t you just call me by my name, like everyone else?” Hey look, a whole sentence without curse words! I guess being clean, rested and full does make a difference after all. He smiles warmly at me, but still stands at attention, back rigid as if he’s just had an aerial shoved up his arse. “Not while on duty, ma’am. This is how I served your parents, and this is how l serve you.” I try to stare him down—a trick which hasn’t worked for the past twenty-five years or so, I might add—give up and collapse into my chair with an audible sigh. Old Xav seats himself next to me and resumes his vigil over the flickering projections suspended in the air in front of him. Taking quick stock of the wealth of data flitting around the room, I notice to my satisfaction that, as Ace said, almost nothing seems to be irreparably broken on the ship, although there’s some obvious hull damage and the keel thruster is well beyond saving. I click my tongue in annoyance when I glance at the status readings on the sails. The headsail is busted all to hell, that’ll limit mobility once we’re back on windpower. Other than that it’s really mostly scrambled electronics. “Give me a quick overview of the last hours, if you would.” “Yes ma’am. As you probably heard, we’re planetside after making an emergency drop from the stream. As far as we can tell, we’re situated in some kind of mudflat with mangrove-like vegetation. A stroke of luck, that, the landing could’ve gone a lot worse if we’d been forced to land on rock. The atmosphere is breathable, and the environment seems to be surprisingly earthlike.” I raise my eyebrows at that. Curiouser and curiouser. “Terraformed?” “No clear indication, but it’s possible. The engineers are working in closed suits, to be on the safe side.“ Prudent. I scan the footage from outside cameras, noticing several work crews, cutting and welding stuff around the crushed thruster, looking like large insects scurrying around in the twilight with their reflective bubble helmes and auxiliary appendages. It’s lighter out than before—dawn must be approaching. “We’ve propped the ship up on the starboard side to keep it level, there’s solid ground to port. We’ve had plenty of indication of wildlife, but...” He trails off. Not good. Though his face betrays nothing, I can sense the uncertainty in his emotions, and cold shivers run up my spine. Old Xavier has served on the Trickster since... well, since before either me or my brother were born. Well past sixty, he’s tough as iron and has more experience under his belt than most merchant crews have between them, and when he hesitates it’s never a good thing. I eye him warily. “But?” “It’s strange. If I had to take a guess, I’d say the planet has been deliberately terraformed to sustain life as we’re used to it, but there isn’t really any indication of human habitation. No radio transmissions, no light pollution, no comms lasers, no nothing.” That chill I felt earlier decides to make an encore to raise the hairs on my neck and then gleefully skip down my spine again. No radio? I know that new colonies often ‘form areas far larger than strictly necessary and then just let the forests spread freely, but far enough to cross the radio horizon? Without new settlers dropping in to build new outposts, broadcasters and airways? Less than bloody likely, as Elizabeth would say. “We have some... interesting readings, though.” I perk up as Xavier makes a languid hand wave at one of the screens, which promptly explodes into a riot of colours representing temperature readings. Clearly visible against the cold black and navy hues of the sky is a... pattern? A... formation, maybe five or six, of small, yellow-and-orange dots that quickly weave back and forth over the canopy before disappearing behind the treetops. I realise it’s a recording, the time stamp indicating that the footage is a few hours old by now. “That didn’t look like an animal.” “No, ma’am. Their heat signature is somewhat higher than human body heat, and they seem to move in formations and precise patterns. Too precise to be animals, at least to my eye.” “Any visual sightings? Higher resolution thermal images?” “No, ma’am. They appear intermittently and then disappear. The closest we’ve seen them at is two clicks. The thermal cam took a beating in the landing, so we haven’t been able to get a clear picture. Hell, we didn’t get the whole camera array unjammed until a couple of hours ago.” I lean back in the seat, absentmindedly running my hand through my still-damp hair. Spy drones? No, even encrypted, those would receive a control signal which we could measure, and there’s no point in flying them in groups. Interceptors...? No, not hot enough. Semi-sentients? ...possible. Maybe some kind of smartboosted large bird. Genetic engineering, but no people, though...? Eh, no use mulling over so little data. I push the thoughts from my mind. “Okay, just keep an eye on them for now. We’ll put the Sparrow out immediately after sunrise.” “Aye, captain.” “And stop calling me captain.” “Aye, ma’am.” I glare at him. “I’m going on an inspection rounds. Keep the ship running.” “Aye.” I clap him on the shoulder and leave. * Bright orange wall-mounted handles flit by as I stride alongside the thick, red guideline painted on the floor. Blood-red letters spell out “SICK BAY” at every intersection. For all the damn colours you’d think that the place would feel less desolate, but unfortunately even a ship as... socially vibrant as the Trickster is cursed with that nuclear bunker aesthetic of spacecraft everywhere. Ah well, it’s the crew that makes the ship, Dad always used to say. I smile at the memory as I turn the final corner before the medical quarters, where some would-be comedian or another has put a completely superfluous amount of effort into calligraphing a single sentence onto the bulkhead. ‘Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate‘. “All hope abandon, ye who enter in,” I murmur under my breath. “The Divine Comedy, if I’m not mistaken,” a curt, male voice calls out. “Ah, Julian. Good morning,” I smile at the surgeon, receiving a noncommittal grunt in response. Oh well, you can’t fault the doctor on his manners. He doesn’t have any to fault. I glance around the white walls of the room while Julian washes his hands in the zero-G sink by the wall. The main area is a mess, with some kind of foul-smelling colourless chemical bleeding out onto the floor from a container full of punctured plastic bottles, and there’s a bunch of empty forms strewn all over the waiting area. A pair of nurses in their distinctive white jumpsuits are taking inventory of a badly battered box of medical supplies, while a third is ticking off a list. They barely spare me a glance, fully immersed in their work. Julian turns to me and eyes me with a scowl—I swear he trims his beard like that just to frame that grimace—while folding his work spectacles into the front pocket of his laboratory coat. “You’re here about the girl.” Straight to the point, as always. “Yes.” “Come.” With that, he turns and strides through an automatic side door with the text ‘NO SURGERY’ hovering a millimeter off the door’s surface in bold, green letters. The room is cold, the space dominated by the bulk of the operating table. Eerily reminiscent of a huge arachnid, its curled-up legs are bristling with extension-mounted scalpel arrays, clamps, tubes and beam lights. I suppress a shudder as I walk up to the table, looking at the human-shaped object under the white sheet. Without ado Julian pulls the sheet down, revealing the young engineer underneath. A thousand worn-out phrases about peaceful sleep flit through my mind as I sadly regard the dead body. Shoulder-length sandy hair, dimples. Thick eyebrows. Nothing especially remarkable. Seeing people—your people—dead isn’t pleasant, even if you weren’t there to see it happen. I’ve stood here before, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to it. Don’t sure if I want to. And even if you know it wasn’t your fault, it still smarts: I’m the fucking captain, It’s my responsibility to keep my crew as safe as they can be. After a while I nod to Julian, turn, and leave. * “Oi, Eris!” Another familiar voice. All right, girl, enough gloomy thoughts. I shoot a fairly genuine smile back at the grinning imp bearing down on me, her angular face suspended over a rough black collar adorned by a single red stripe. “Spitfire, good to see you.” Still grinning, the infantrywoman stomps up to me and claps my shoulder with enough force to dislocate any one of my joints. I really wish she’d realise that just because I’m a head taller than her doesn’t mean I have her ridiculous toughness. Okay, nevermind, smile, ignore the pain. I notice her glance towards the sick bay before turning back to me, a more serious expression on her face. “To spot the girl that got 'er loaf of bread caved in, yeah?“ I wince at the choice of words, but nod nonetheless. Elizabeth was never one for subtlety and tact. Come to think of it, I seem to be running into all the delicacy-challenged crewmembers one after the other, today. “Yeah. In a way I’m happy that we got off with so little casualties, but... you know,” I trail off. “Eyup, it were a tight spot we got out of. Son't flog yorself over it.” “Yeah, I know. What’re the platoons doing?” “We're puttin' togeffer a scoutin' patrol, right, I'm supposed ta pull a briefin' for the girls and fellas in ten.” “Right, well, I won’t keep you any longer, then.” “Awright. Oh yeah, yor bruvver's been 'ave a lookin' for yer. He should be on the observation deck.” “Okay, thanks.” “Take care of yorself now!” Ow! Crap! Why does she do that shoulder thing? I watch her scamper away down the corridor and begin walking to the nearest ladder, rubbing my arm as I go. * “Hey, Archie.” In his favour, he barely raises an eyebrow at the nickname. “‘Archie’? You haven’t called me Archie since you were twelve.” “Nevermind that, Archie. What’s going on?” “This is revenge for letting you sleep in, isn’t it?” I smirk at his long-suffering sigh. “Okay, fine. Have your petty vengeance, you petulant child.” He turns back to the armour-plated window and zooms the image with a few hand gestures. There’s a short moment of vertigo as the faraway forest suddenly rushes in and then tilts, pans and finally focuses on the sought-after target on the forest floor. All right, let’s see. Fully enclosed suits, rifles, light body armor, blue stripe. One of Abebe’s ground teams. I realize how light it’s getting outside, the troops are setting up what I now recognise to be a drone crash landing pad, and doing it without the help of searchlights. Sunrise must be mere minutes away. “Setting up the pad for the Sparrow?” “Yes. Did you speak with Xavier?” “Yeah. What do you think those fliers are?” “I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” We stand in silence for a few minutes, watching the black-clad people on the ground mill around the bulky equipment. I glance over at my brother, who seems to be lost in his thoughts. He’s shaved the stubble, showered, and found a fresh doublet, so he looks slightly more human now, and now that we’re just the two of us he isn’t pulling that ridiculous military act anymore. I pull him into a one-armed hug and rest my head against his shoulder. “It was a good call, getting us out. Thanks, Archie.” He says nothing, but squeezes me back. We stand like that for a while, briefly allowing ourselves to forget that we’re responsible for well more than a hundred people stranded on unknown ground and with probable pursuers hot on our tails. Over the horizon, the first golden rays of a G-class star burst over the treetops and rush to embrace the forested landscape. Of course, it doesn’t last. A demure electronic chime heralds the hairless head of Xavier, the projection popping up at eye height in front of the observation window. I release Ace who straightens up and addresses the disembodied face on the glass. “Is everything ready?” “Yes, sir. The Sparrow is loaded in the catapult, and ready for overflight.” “Good. Launch at your discretion, and sweep the forested hills southwest of here. Focus on the last reported locations of the unknown fliers.” “Roger: scouting Bogeys, launching when ready.” The picture winks out of existence, and a few seconds later a deep metallic clang accompanied by the faint static noise of high-yield atmospheric thrusters signal the ascent of the unmanned spy craft. Ace cycles through a few curt hand signals, and the image of the ground crew returns to a regular one-to-one panoramic view of the outside, peripherally obscured by the fair dozen of feeds flowing in from the airborne drone. “And now, we play the waiting game.” Leveling at an even height of three hundred meters, the Sparrow quickly reaches the place I recognise from the morning’s thermal camera feed. Executing a lazy horizontal loop over the area, the drone angles out to the left and begins weaving in a languid pattern in the general direction of the highest visible hill, a few kilometers distant. A minute passes with nothing showing on the display feeds besides forest, interspaced by the occasional clearing or large, overgrown boulder. Then another. The silence is becoming rather anticlimactic when an angry metallic buzz jars the tranquil stream of nature photography, and a monochrome thermal feed automatically slides into the center of the viewscreen. I squint at the image, trying to see what triggered the alarm. “I don’t see anything.” “There.” Once he points it out it’s pretty obvious. Although hard to spot from the angle of the drone, a noticeable white trace of heat mars the cold grey shade of a flat slab of rock, laying on the edge of a clearing. Ace holds up a finger above his ear. A small speaker icon winks to life on the screen. “Xavier?” “I see it, sir,” assures the disembodied voice. “Take us closer.” The image is growing now, not in the smooth, even rush of shifting lenses, but in the lazy gliding jumps of the drone changing direction and gunning its thrusters to close the distance to the clearing. It takes but half a minute for the Sparrow to descend to a hundred and fifty meters and close in on the clearing, sensors meticulously examining the rock and surrounding ground for movement, heat, radiation and sound. For several seconds, nothing happens. “There’s something warm in that tree. Maybe it's just an anim—what the fuck?” Ace doesn’t get to finish his first sentence before the fliers burst out of the foliage, automated cam servos dispassionately locking onto and tracking the moving objects, now rendered in beautiful high resolution, well-lighted images being streamed back to the ship in real-time. Which doesn’t make the images any easier to process. At all. Instead of just constructively skipping a gear and fitting new facts into its worldview, my mind promptly spits out the whole cogwheel and then collapses the whole machinery in on itself. Out of the wreckage, the single question my brain has deemed most relevant to the situation excavates itself to the surface. “Is that horse holding a fucking sword?” *