This Starry Deep (7 page)

Chapter 1
0
– Shae

MY HEAD THROBBED. It was a good throb, the kind that told me I was alive. I had that much going for me. Not much else. There was something blocking my eyes and muffing my hearing. My breathing was being stifled both in and out. A hood; had to be.

I tensed my arms and legs, joint by joint. Nothing felt broken or damaged, but someone had managed to secure me really well. My arms and legs were each strapped down to whatever platform pressed against my back. Other straps pulled tight across my chest and hips and knees. They’d left my neck free, not bothering to lay a strap across my forehead. They’d left me upright - I could tell by the ease with which I swallowed - and I didn’t feel particularly drugged.

I strained to listen through my hood for any noises. A soft electrical hum cycled and an air scrubber clicked on and off slowly. I pegged it as a ship. Something big, too. Big enough to have space to leave one woman in an empty room. I couldn’t, of course, tell how big the room was, not for certain. Still, the change in sound when I turned my head, even muffled, was enough to suggest an open space.

Using each limb in turn, I tensed and strained slowly, testing to see how secure the straps really were. Secure enough, it turned out, that nothing budged. I curled my fingers into my palms and tried, with my left hand, to then inch my fingers up under the wrist strap there. If I could get to my wrist, there was a tiny patch of skin under which lay an emergency beacon. A quick burst would let Jonah know where I was.

I turned my wrist around as much as I could and felt a bandage there. Hell, they might have done a passive scan and picked up the beacon. If they had, it would’ve been easy to remove. I took a deep breath, strained by the hood, and exhaled slowly. No choice but to wait for their next move, whoever I was waiting on. I knew everything I would get to know from where I was. Now it came down to a matter of time. They wouldn’t leave me here to rot like this, too much work had gone into securing me. If they wanted me to go to waste in a box, they could have just dumped me in a box without lashing me to a table first.

The fact that they obviously wanted me alive, even for a little while, coupled with an educated guess that they knew who I was, helped. Removing that beacon was their mistake. It meant they probably thought my biggest threat came from my darling husband, the hero. They’d regret that, later.

My breathing filled my consciousness for about an hour, as I waited. Muscles relaxed, mind in a simple meditation loop. Random exertion wouldn’t get me any closer to free. After that hour or so of waiting, I heard a door open. Smells hit me first, something not-human. A biological smell, one I couldn’t quite place. Nothing I’d encountered enough to cleanly identify, at least. That left a wide-open field.

As they came closer, I could hear nails against the floor and a stride that spoke of long legs. The smell got closer, as did the sound, and soon enough I felt claws against my head. Gently, not trying to gouge chunks of skin off, the claws slid against me, gathering up some of the hood to drag it free. The fingers felt inexpert, almost clumsy.

I kept my eyes closed when the hood came off, not wanting to blind myself. I opened them slowly, letting the light stab my senses in a somewhat controlled fashion. I tried to look down first, assuming any lighting source would be above or in front of me. I caught sight of the feet that made the claw-like clicking noise and changed the word “claw” in my head to “talon.” The feet were leathery and long-toed, each having two toes pointing forward and one pointing back: bird’s feet.

Sure enough, as I let my gaze wander up the body of the alien in front of me I took in a bird’s body: lightly feathered, long limbed and overall thin. Vestigial wings hung beneath the arms. A sharp bird’s head stared back at me, the eyes to each side of the face, just forward enough to grant good line-of-sight vision.

There were four of the aliens, each taller, on average, than a human. They looked at me and then at each other, beaks opening to chirp and chitter away in some language I’d never heard. Which made sense, really; there was no record of a species like this. If they were our invaders, then they were also something brand new.

“What do you want?” I asked them four times in different standard languages. One of them, a standard trading language from out around the far-spun end of the galaxy, hit. I kept going: “Why am I here? What do you want from me, can we help you?”

I wasn’t, honestly, a fan of that last question. Still, the polite thing often proved the most useful. Ask if they need help, if this is a misunderstanding, and then when it proves to be very intentional, blow someone to hell.

“We require information,” it said to me, accent thick and slurring. Recent language acquisition, that beak had trouble with some of the sounds.

“Me too,” I told him, her, or it, whatever this bird was. One major rule of being captured: don’t act like you’re inconvenienced. Present yourself as part of a conversation and sometimes, if they’re new, you can get lucky. They get sloppy. Sloppy gets you free.

“You will tell us of your home system,” the bird said.

I laughed. “I doubt it.” I took a minute to glance around the room. Simple, standard room, sadly. No clues to be found: empty except for me and the flock in front of me, metal walls, recessed lighting in the ceiling. Any number of species from any number of systems could have built it. “Where are you from?” I asked, relaxing my head against the board I was secured to.

They didn’t reply, choosing instead to look at each other and start chirping. I couldn’t understand them, and couldn’t count on inflection meaning the same things it did for humans, but if there were correlations, they were pissed. My refusing to play along must not have sat well.

“We will leave you to think and cooperate over time,” the only bird to have spoken a language I could understand said to me.

I shrugged. “You can keep waiting, but it won’t change anything,” I told them, truthfully. I knew I could out-wait them.

The leader, or at least the one who had spoken to me, turned and the others followed him. The door slid open and they left. Amateurs. The hood was left off of me and the lights were left on. Not smart.

I scanned the room carefully once they had gone. Nothing looked like it could be recording me. That didn’t mean much, really, but it gave me a bit of hope. Still, they could have tech I never dreamt of monitoring me. No clue.

Something still felt off, though. If they wanted real information, then this sort of interrogation was truly pathetic. And if they didn’t need it, then why bother? Stalling made no sense, but it fit decently. Which begged question: why stall me, and from doing what, or knowing what? I wasn’t sure, obviously, but I also didn’t intend to stay that way.

Then I looked down. I craned my neck as best I could, trying to find a weak point in the board I was attached to. It stood up from the floor, tilted back maybe fifteen degrees. Making an L shape against the floor, the plate that secured the board to the floor itself shined, made of the same metal that the board was.

I was missing something and I knew it. Something in the room, in the aliens - the entire setup and sequence of events didn’t ring true for me. I didn’t know what I was missing, though. So I relaxed again, shut my eyes, and thought. They’d be back, but by then I’d know what was bothering me. I hoped it’d be enough to change the odds.

Chapter 1
1
– Jonah

I ONLY HAD a few seconds before someone found me and tried to stop me. Would’ve been easier with Shae by my side. Together there wasn’t much we couldn’t deal with, but no, I stood alone. I didn’t want a fight, not with these guys. They were on my side, and I was trying to save some of their own friends. Still, they’d be following orders to stop me. Put me in a small bind.

I stopped a pilot on her way by. A hand on the shoulder, a concerned, honest-type look, and she raised an eyebrow at me.

“Hey, do you know where Mills is,” I asked, “or a pilot named Malik?”

She looked at my dress uniform and name tag, trying to place me. “Uhhh, Malik?”

“Yeah, nice guy. He was my transpo up here. Left something on his ship, just need to ask him where it is.”

“Malik left on another dirtside run. Any non-perm cargo would be routed to storage B, I’d check there,” she said. She added a shrug for emphasis.

“Thanks.” I stood there another second and looked around.

She laughed - Hanley, her name tag said - and pointed. “Down this corridor to the access drop, down two levels and sternward from there,” she said helpfully.

“Thanks again, Captain,” I told her, already starting to move. Breaking into a run would be suspicious. Also not recommended, in case my knee went. Instead, I walked briskly, and kept my chin up. I really didn’t want a fight, but I also didn’t plan on being stopped.

I made the lift, and as I got in I saw security round the turn behind me. Not long now. They’d use the access shafts instead and beat me to the next level. Nothing for it. I tensed as the doors opened.

Two security guards came up to me, only a few steps away, as I exited the lift. “Captain Madison, please, stop where you are. General Hodges’ orders, sir.” They must have been asked to be gentle. Hodges knew what I planned to do, at least loosely, and hadn’t ordered them to stun on sight. Interesting.

“Hodges told you to ask all nice, huh?” I kept walking away from them, slowly.

“We have our orders, sir,” he told me.

“I’m afraid I can’t stop, boys. I need to go save your friends. Hodges and I disagree about this, but seriously, just let me go, all right?” I knew they wouldn’t - couldn’t, really - but nothing was lost by giving them the truth, either.

“Lieutenant Mills said you’d tell us that,” the second guard said, “but Captain, we can’t let you…”

“Mills gave you your orders?” I asked.

“Direct from General Hodges, sir.”

And then the hands-off approach made sense. Mills decided to tone back the good General’s orders a bit. Nice work, kid. I saw the turn I needed and ran the odds. I could keep them from stopping me physically until I got to storage B, but getting in and grabbing my equipment (and all that entailed) wouldn’t be possible at all. I needed to talk them down or take them out.

Twenty years ago - hell, ten - I would’ve broken orders flat and punched them both out. The bodies would’ve fit in a closet and I could’ve gotten everything done and worried about consequences at the end of the mission. The idea still appealed to me, but these guys were in the prime of their lives, in great shape and ready for a fight. I felt old.

That sat heavily on my chest and annoyed me. I didn’t want to feel old. No one did, I reckoned. I pulled my gun from its holster and leveled it at the two security goons. “This, in case you don’t recognize it, is an Acadian blaster. Got that?” I flashed them a grin and watched as their faces told me that they knew exactly what the weapon was. “Good. Now, you two are going to lose any weapons you have, and any comm units.”

“Sir, Captain Madison, this is—”

“Sure it is, kid,” I cut him off, “don’t care. I’d rather save some lives.” I gestured with the gun and they laid down their weapons and took off their comm units. I found the nearest storage room and shoved them in.

Now, would they have backup comms or something else? Of course. I didn’t frisk them or check close. It was enough to get the obvious stuff and leave them a way to free themselves, after I had left. The door closed and I used the blaster to melt the bulkhead and door together with one seamless, ugly weld.

From there it was into storage B and signing out one of the cases that Malik had carried up to the ship with me. I dragged it off into a private room and opened it. Retinal, fingerprint, and voice scans all registered correct before the top of the case hissed as the interior sucked air into what had been its interior vacuum.

I grabbed up a bunch of old, familiar items and smirked at them. My dress uniform came off quickly, and I shoved it inside the box. I tugged on my old battle thinsuit - it still fit perfectly. I stopped and slapped on a pressurized knee brace to prevent strange maneuvers from causing havoc with the joint. I stood there and looked at myself in the warped reflection of the case’s remaining object.

The suit was a solid black with dark blue patches that ran from the outer half of the boots up the outside side of each leg. The blue ended at the belt and then picked up again halfway up the back, where it ran up to cover my shoulders with a bit of color and then scooped down over part of my chest in a loose curve.

The old team insignia sat over the left breast, five arrows in an upside down V, and JONAH in block letters under it. I belted my holster around the suit and grabbed the GravPack, which made a crap mirror anyway, and slid it on, securing the straps around my shoulders and belting it at my waist above the holster. It looked like a large silver bullet and extended from just below my neck down to my ass. I could sit while wearing it, but only just. I grabbed up and strapped a bunch of extra O2 mini-tanks around my calves, activating the first. Enough air for a month the way these things worked.

I grabbed a last tiny bag and closed the case, securing it. I dragged it back to the storage clerk, who looked rather surprised to see me dressed for combat. He took the case anyway.

Back out into the hallway, I opened the small bag as I walked. The contact lenses were still fine in their case, and I put them in with years of distracted practice. Five timed blinks to activate them and an overlay popped to life, floating there in my field of vision.

A combination of a gesture system in my gloves and line-of-sight selections let me pull the specs for the ship and float a map. There was an emergency hatch just down the hall from where I stood. Perfect.

Less perfect was the second security group that came up on me as I headed there. These guys weren’t planning on asking nicely for me to stop. Their weapons already sat in their hands as they started to hurry toward me, shouting variations on the concept of “stop.” Too close and no time for a fight, then. I grabbed my blaster and set it on high, pressing it against the hull before I pulled the trigger.

With my free hand I activated my forcehood, a tiny, double-sided gravity field that would keep my air in and anything aimed at my head out. My lenses compensated for the vision distortion and I yelled back at the security guards, “You might want to hold on!”

The hull gave and I got pushed out of the ship. I knew the self-seal would engage before anyone else was badly hurt, so long as the guards realized what was going on fast enough. They did. Good.

A series of quick blinks and the bullet on my back hummed to life. Gravity engines were hell on ships - the bigger the ship, the worse the effect. But a single-man pack, that worked wonders.

I called up star charts and worked out where the strike team had fought, relative to my position. If I pushed the GravPack as hard as it could go I could catch them as they came toward our vector. Nothing else out here could catch me, either. GravPacks, going full bore, had a way of moving too fast to catch. Universal forces don’t like to be outclassed.

I signaled the strike team. “Deep Water, this is Jonah. You still out there?”

“Copy that, Captain Madison.”

“Jonah. I’ll intercept your current vector, meet you in a few. You stay alive, copy?”

“There’s no way you could get here fast enough to—”

“I’ll meet you in a few. Copy?”

“Copy that Captain…Jonah. But
how
?”

“Leave that to me. Jonah out.”

I stared at the stars surrounding me, the ships nearby, and the galaxy as a whole, all waiting for me to do what I used to do best. I just had to be up to it. To hell with it. I locked the GravPack on target and pinned the throttle to max. I’d have to be good enough.

And once I got out there, I’d also be a step closer to Shae. All I had to do now was survive. My specialty.