Date Point: 15y6m AV
Allied Extrasolar Command, Scotch Creek, British Columbia, Canada, Earth
General Gregory Kolbeinn
“Well, who the hell were they?”
The Gaoians had kindly shared the schematics for first-generation wormhole routers, which Kolbeinn had promptly ordered should be constructed in Mrwrki’s nanofactories and installed at a few strategic facilities. Scotch Creek, the Pentagon, Whitehall, NORAD, Sharman, The Deep Space Strategic Weapons Reserve at Minot AFB, and the 946th spaceflight wing at Malmstrom.
He didn’t give a bent crap that the technology was currently plagued by dropped data packets and the audio codec they were using was barely better than an antique radio. His predecessors had worked with far worse communications technology, and Clan Longear were promising to improve it over time. He didn’t care that each one needed its own dedicated fusion reactor, either: the value of being able to communicate real-time (whatever that meant) across interstellar—theoretically even intergalactic—distances was worth every one of the millions of dollars he’d had to go cap-in-hand for.
Right now he was in an interstellar conference call with Lt. Col. Nadeau and the newest member of the Mrwrki team, Analyst Darcy.
“The only known candidate would be Byron Group Exploration Vehicle Three,” Darcy informed him. “They vanished years ago after heading in that direction. If it wasn’t them, we have no idea who else it might be.”
“Aren’t most of the BGEV program still missing?” Kolbeinn asked.
“Yup. Including the secret mission they sent to go look for the others. But Three—Dauntless—went in a completely different direction to all the other missing ones. Right toward Hunter space. The Dominion hadn’t shared their maps by the time they set out.”
Kolbeinn grimaced slightly. The Dominion had a lot to answer for. “Byron worked fast,” he observed.
“They used imported ET tech, mostly,” Nadeau explained. “Misfit was the first one that used exclusively human technology.”
“Sloppy engineering?”
Nadeau shook his head. “Doubtful. Say what you like about the Dominion but their technology—or at least the stuff they traded with us—is dependable. Uninspiring and low-performance, but it’ll last for decades on practically zero maintenance.”
Kolbeinn nodded. He read periodic summaries of the designs and technology coming out of Hephaestus, SpaceX, MBG, Lockheed-Martin and BAE. Human companies weren’t yet trading with anybody but the Gao, but by all accounts there were human-made components in some of the latest Gaoian ships and vehicles. Humanity was carving a niche in the market for high-performance equipment where serious maintenance requirements weren’t an obstacle. Firebirds in particular could still fly the pants off anything else in the sky, even a Gaoian Voidripper.
Something to be proud of, that.
“Well, we got some intel out of the Entity over what Hunter space looks like at least…” he said, and sat back to rest his hands lightly on his stomach, looking to Darcy. “What’s this ring structure?”
She gave the uncomfortable look of a woman who didn’t know as much as she would like. “It says they call it the Builder Hive. It’s… well, as far as I can tell it’s… honestly, I don’t know exactly.”
“It’s a BDO,” Nadeau said. Kolbeinn aimed an interrogative eyebrow at him and he clarified. “Big Dumb Object. They didn’t need to build it, but they did anyway to sate their ego.”
“Habitat, factories, shipyards, port?” Kolbeinn asked.
“That and more,” Darcy said.
“Beverote and I ran some back-of-the-envelope calculations on that thing,” Nadeau said. “If it’s a hollow torus then its inner surface area is… well, ten or eleven times that of the continental USA.” And that’s just if it’s hollow! If it’s full of decks—”
“—as seems likely,” Kolbeinn predicted.
“—as seems likely, yes, then… Well.”
Kolbeinn was in the habit of fidgeting with small things as he thought. He had a number of pens on his desk for that exact purpose, and he picked one up now to spin it thoughtfully around his thumb.
“I doubt even the Hunters are weird enough to build something like that ‘just because they can’.” he said. “Engineering on that scale isn’t cheap no matter how your economy runs. They must have seen some benefit besides ego.”
“Have you ever seen the Great Pyramid of Giza, general?” Darcy asked. She nodded when he shook his head. “I have. And it would have been a massive focus of the ancient Egyptian economy when they built it. What benefit did they see to building it?”
“None we’d think of as practical,” Nadeau agreed.
“Hmm.”
Kolbeinn considered things some more then sighed. “…Pass this along to the Gao. Maybe they’ll know what to do with it. Meanwhile, I’ll have somebody get in touch with the Byron Group and let them know. Good work, Darcy. …Thank it for me.”
“I will,” Darcy promised.
“Thank you both.”
They signed off with a nod, and a ‘sir’ from Nadeau. Kolbeinn closed the file and turned back to the more mundane matters of his job, which was mostly nowhere near as exciting. But he found it hard to keep his attention on the work at hand over the next few hours. Whenever he wasn’t speaking with somebody, his thoughts kept turning back to those people who’d oh-so-briefly come up on his radar.
There, he felt, had gone a missed opportunity.
Date Point: 15y6m AV
Stolen Hunter swarmship, Hell system, Hunter Space
Rachel “Ray” Wheeler
“Christ. It’s like every time I think I figured out how big it is, it just gets bigger again…”
Ray jumped. Spears’ comment was the first any of them had spoken in a few minutes, and a cathedral hush had fallen over the whole flight deck as they drew closer and closer to the ring. Its sudden interruption was jarring.
He was right, though—the perspective kept shifting. The Ring was too damn big, and in space there was no atmospheric haze to help her gauge distance. One second, part of it would look to be close by, and then her visual cortex would have a moment of epiphany and realize that no, it was in fact still far away and just much, much bigger than she’d been grasping.
“…How far out are we?” Conley asked.
Spears checked the displays around him. “We’re about a million… units,” he said, and indicated a series of angry angular runes that were probably numerals. They were ticking down in a blur. “Fuck knows how the Hunters measure distance. At a guess, I’m gonna say… five hundred klicks, maybe?”
“Jesus, really?” Ray hissed. “I thought we had to be almost landed on it by now.”
“Won’t be long,” Spears predicted. He turned in his seat. “You guys should go gear up, piss, whatever. Ray, could you refill my water?”
“Sure.”
She took the bottle off him and used the dispenser in one corner—she couldn’t really call it a faucet—to top him up.
“So.” She sat down next to him. “Now that we have this room to ourselves… how fucked are we?”
“Honestly, it’s a goddamn miracle we’re still alive. And I don’t mean Berry finding the cloak, I mean by all rights we shoulda been butchered on the ground while I figured how to fly this damn thing… except the controls are almost identical to Dauntless.”
Ray blinked, then considered them. Now she looked at them, she could see what he meant. “…That can’t be coincidental.”
“Nah. It’s Dominion tech. Guess the Hunters use it too. But…” He sighed. “Look, this whole plan was always more of a ‘go down fighting’ kinda thing anyway, wasn’t it?”
“That’s quitting talk.”
“Bullshit. Be realistic, Ray, did you really think we were ever gonna get back to Earth?”
“Not if we stayed where we were,” Ray said. She sighed when she saw him shake his head. “No. Seriously. For me it’s not ‘go down fighting’, that’s just a fancy way of saying suicide. I want to go home. If we all die trying, well…”
“We will, you know.”
Ray just shrugged. “We’re still—”
“—Still here…” Spears interrupted her, wearily. “What is that, your mantra?”
“It means where there’s life there’s hope.” She leaned over and jabbed a finger into his chest. “And you believe it too. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have been dodging shots back there.”
“Maybe I just believe that every second of life you can earn is worth it. Even if they are in Hell.”
“Nah, you don’t believe that ever. Otherwise you would never have backed the plan to escape.” Ray put her hand on his. “You think we can do this too. We all do.”
Spears sighed wearily, but after a second he turned his hand over and squeezed hers. “Then we’re idiots.”
“…I guess going down fighting’s a good second place to escaping,” Ray admitted.
“Mm. But you’re right: Let’s go for the gold medal.” He let go of her hand and returned it to the controls. “Getting close now.”
Ray considered the Ring again. It wasn’t a ring now, but a wall in space with a weird horizon that was shorter along one axis than the other. This close, she could finally see that the surface wasn’t a smooth uniform expanse but in fact had texture. It looked in fact like there was a second surface, lurking behind the outermost one. The impression of depth was giddying.
“What are those… plates?” she asked, leaning closer to peer at them as if that made any sense.
“Debris shields, I think. Spaced armor, like the skirt on a tank. You could probably nuke this thing from the outside and barely scorch the paint.”
“How do we even get on board? I don’t see a docking bay or anything…”
“This is a Hunter ship. It’s designed to dig into bigger ships and stations like a tick. I figured I’d find a spot where we can get in behind those plates where the hull is thin and break through that way.”
“And you know how to work the boarding mechanism?”
“…That may take some trial and error,” Spears admitted.
The titanic structure came up to meet them, and Ray leaned forward so she could look up through the rounded canopy at the front to watch the debris shields slide past on either side. From afar they’d looked as tightly-packed as lego bricks. Up close, the gaps between them were as wide as city blocks.
“Not sure any part of the hull will be thin enough, Spears…” she pointed out as they slipped into the gap between the plates and the hull proper.
“Just another in a long line of impossible shit we’ve done today,” he replied. Experimentally, he jabbed a finger at his controls. “I think I saw… yeah, there it is.”
Ray examined the new volumetric schematic that had come up in front of her. It was an intricate model of the hull directly in front of them, complete with the cavities beyond highlighted in blue. “Must be some kind of penetrating radar,” she said.
“Think it’ll help us find a thin spot?” Spears asked.
“…I think it already has. There.” Ray pointed. “See that heat signature there? Looks like radiators. There’s a space behind it, it’s big enough and it’s right on the surface.” the radar had drawn a blue line behind it, sketching out the shape of a cavity of some kind. “I hope blue means full of air and not water or whatever.”
“Well… the worst-case scenario is we all die. So, nothing’s changed there.” Spears angled them toward it.
Ray stood up and left him to figure it out. She joined the others in the central space behind the boarding ramp that seemed to serve as cargo hold, prep area or whatever else. Berry handed her her rifle as she joined them.
“P-please don’t shoot anyone you don’t h— ugh, have to this time,” he said, though there was a slight touch of black humor twitching around his eyes and mouth. Ray checked the weapon, then slung it around her shoulder and gave him a pat on the arm.
“No promises,” she said. “We’ve found a spot to dig through the hull. No idea what’s on the far side.”
“Story of this whole day…” Conley grunted. He sighed, stood up and gave Ray a complicated look. “…What exactly is Spears’ plan once we’re on the other side?”
Ray shrugged. “He doesn’t have one. I don’t either.”
“Hey,” Cook rapped the back of his hand against Conley’s chest. “Whatever happens, it beats spendin’ the rest of our lives hidin’ in a hole suckin’ down Hot.”
“…I really wish you weren’t right about that…” Conley muttered. He tapped the end of his spear nervously on the deck, then turned to Holly. “How’re you doing, Chase?”
Holly was sitting on her ammo cans again. That seemed to be her default mode at the moment: Waiting patiently for whatever happened next. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. She looked… serene, Ray decided. As though she was totally at peace with whatever the future held.
“Choi?”
“Kinda optimistic, actually,” Jamie said. “Feels good to be doing stuff, y’know?”
“Spoken like an engineer!” Cook grinned. Of all of them, he seemed the most enthusiastic.
Spears called down from the control room. “Brace, front wall!”
They didn’t need telling twice. Within seconds, the six of them were lined up shoulder-to-shoulder against the front of the ship. Ray found herself sandwiched between Berry and Choi.
“So how’s this boarding thing—” Jamie began.
There was a slam that knocked them hard into the the wall like a firm shove. It was followed seconds later by the prolonged screech and grind of metal being torturously gnawed through. There was a sharp bang! more screeching, a shuddering lurch and then—
The front ramp clawed itself open with a twisted shriek. Hot, dry air rushed in and made Ray’s hair crackle with static electricity.
The sound was incredible. She’d grown up in a small town smack in Tornado Alley, and though she’d never seen a tornado herself she’d often laid awake at night listening to plenty of powerful storms straining at the roof. The maelstrom that blew in through the open ramp sounded like all of them at once.
Spears joined them a second later, holding his BGEV-03 ball cap on with one hand. “Guess they use air cooling!” he shouted.
“Whatever! We’re in!” Ray shouted back.
Cook peeled himself away from the wall and stood in the exit ramp. The gale rocked him on his feet and played with his clothing like a flag. “Then what are we waiting for?”
Ray unslung her rifle, keyed off the safety, and took her place next to him. “Hell if I know!”
He laughed, and they strode down the ramp together.
The wind was even worse in the tunnel beyond. Ray’s feet clanged on what looked like dusty galvanized aluminium which rang like a gargantuan sonorous chime before the rushing air snatched the sound away. She could barely stand up, and found that she had to turn sideways on to the current in order to ease her progress. A quick check left and right showed no sign of movement, or life of any kind.
“Clear!”
The others were already jumping down. Spears paused to help Holly lower the ammo cans on their truck off the end of the ramp and just like that their short and ill-fated flight was over. None of them were ever likely to even see their stolen ship again, let alone reenter it.
None of them cared.
“Downwind!” Conley called. There were nods all around—fighting their way upstream against the air was just going to exhaust them.
They turned, and, silent except for the thundering roar in their ears, they moved forward.
Date Point: 15y6m AV
Moses Byron Group headquarters, Omaha, Nebraska, USA, Earth
Kevin Jenkins
“So you can’t tell us any more details than… No. No, I understand. No. Thank you for letting us know. You too.”
Moses had aged, just in the length of one phone call. He wasn’t a young man anyway, but usually his sheer cantankerous energy kept him running along like somebody twenty years his junior.
Kevin had almost been able to watch his face turn haggard as he received… whatever the bad news was. It had interrupted their conversation, so it had to be important.
For a change, Moses had come to Kevin’s office rather than the other way round, and the difference was striking. Moses kept a small, Spartan office on the second floor that looked like it could have belonged to any high-school principal or small-town lawyer.
Kevin’s on the other hand was one of the executive offices on the top floor. It was twice as large, partitioned into two spaces dominated respectively by his desk and by a small conference table, and commanded a clear and even pretty view out over Little Italy and across the river into Iowa. He’d filled it with personal touches out of his own pocket—a model of BGEV-10, his going-away gift from Scotch Creek, a signed selfie with Rylee Jackson and the Misfit trio. His pride and joy was a refurbished vintage vinyl jukebox, a Rock-Ola Comet 1438, and he’d loaded it with BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan and a host of others.
And, of course, the espresso bar. Making his own coffee was one of his little freedoms.
Moses pocketed his cellphone and slumped in his seat. “Well… Shit.”
He rarely swore. Not never, but rarely enough that Kevin couldn’t help but be concerned. “You look like you just got about the worst news ever…” he said.
Moses chuckled darkly. “…Had a lotta those…” he grunted, then straightened up and cleared his throat. “…That was some kid from AEC. They think… they got some intel that maybe the Dauntless crew were still alive. Too late to save ‘em.”
“Shit.”
“My feelings exactly.”
Kevin stood up and resumed his coffee preparations. Even if not for Moses’ benefit, they made him feel better. “Where the hell have they been all this time?”
“AEC couldn’t say. Security, need-to-know, you know. That stuff.”
He settled into distant silence as Kevin hissed and steamed his way through the barista’s art, and only came back to the here-and-now when a steaming mug landed in front of him.
“…Christ. Makes me wonder if any of the others are still alive,” he said.
Kevin sat down. “I don’t wanna sound callous here, boss man, but it probably ain’t worth worrying over. You’ll just stress yourself to an early grave and it won’t help them none.”
Moses sighed. “Don’t ask me to stop caring, Kevin. I can’t.”
“So care. Just… don’t waste your care.” Kevin picked up his coffee and held it in two hands, savoring the warmth and the scent. “D’you wanna send out the memo, or should I?”
“No. No, this one’s mine,” Moses said.
“You got it.”
They drank their coffees in silent reflection, until Moses finally placed his empty mug on the conference table with a sharp tap.
“…Where were we?” he asked.
“The Flycatcher order for the Grand Army of the Gao.”
“Right… They want the tech diagrams so they can make their own?”
“Goldpaw are offerin’, uh…” Kevin returned to his tablet and searched through the letters he’d received. “…a proprietary use fee. Here…”
Business returned to something resembling normal.
Date Point: 15y6m AV
The Ring, Hell System, Hunter Space
Rachel “Ray” Wheeler
In the end, they found their way out of the air cooling system via some kind of a sump. The air had been getting progressively colder as they got further and further downwind, until they were shivering and water was condensing all around them.
Their exit was a runoff that ended in a horrific pool of stagnant slime. It didn’t stink, but it clung to Ray’s boots like runny pancake batter.
“…Ew.”
Cook’s boots splashed into the water next to her and he straightened up, having had to stoop low to fit through the runoff tunnel. “Hey, it’s an improvement on the goddamn wind tunnel at least.”
“And the wind tunnel was an improvement on being shot at, and being shot at was an improvement on eating Hot in a canyon,” Conley remarked. He massaged his ears to try and recover from the relentless buffeting sound they’d all had to endure for the last hour or so. “After all these improvements, you’d think we’d be somewhere nice by now.”
“Gotta climb down Satan’s dick for that one, Pete,” Cook said cheerfully. Conley gave him a confused look, which he then turned on Holly when she surprised them all by giggling.
“…That’s how Inferno ends,” she confirmed. “Sorta. I didn’t know you read it, Cook?”
“Nah. Read the Larry Niven version. Instead’a Dante an’ Virgil it was an author insert and Benito Mussolini. Wild shit. He spent the whole time tryin’a figure out the science of it all.”
He’d been a scientist once, Ray remembered. They all had. She should know better—Cook had been a well-read, enthusiastic geek when they first met—but their years on Hell had probably changed him the most. It was hard to remember him as he’d been.
Then again, they’d all changed. Holly and Choi were certainly quieter nowadays. Conley was sourer, Berry had almost completely withdrawn into his shell… She hadn’t noticed a change in Spears, or herself. But then again, the most insidious changes were the ones that went undetected.
“Is there a way outta here?” she asked, to distract herself from her thoughts.
“Looks like a pressure hatch over here,” Choi said, indicating a long handle on the wall. “Hope it’s warmer on the other side.”
“Hope it’s not vacuum on the other side,” Conley muttered. “…Whatever. Nothing ventured nothing gained, right?”
“Right.” Choi grabbed the handle and pushed it down. It moved easily, there was a thumping clunggg noise and part of the wall cracked apart. Air rushed viciously around them for a few seconds before settling, and when he pulled the hatch open it swung easily on well-oiled hinges.
“…Dunno if that’s a good thing or not,” he said. “This part of the Ring sees regular maintenance at least.”
“Yeah, but it’s low-tech,” Spears pointed out. “Steel pressure doors, rubber seals… no fancy forcefield shit out here. Hopefully that means it’s a long way from any Hunters.”
“Here’s hoping…” Berry lined up on one side of the door, Ray on the other. They nodded, spun through together and aimed their rifles either way down the corridor beyond.
“Clear.”
“C-clear.”
“Close it up behind us, Jamie,” Spears said, helping Holly get the ammo through the door.
“Yup.”
Choi got his wish, at least. The corridor, or deck or whatever that they’d stepped out onto was a good twenty degrees more temperate than the freezing, windy sump they’d just left behind them. Ray rubbed her arms and shivered, but she was feeling warmer already.
“Okay…” Conley asked. “Left or right?”
“Well… something was making all that heat for the cooling system to bleed off,” Ray pointed out. “So, I say we head back that way.”
“Why? What d’you think it might be?”
“It could be anything. A foundry, a shipyard, a reactor core… The point is, we know there’s something over that way. For all we know the only thing that way—” she jerked a thumb over her shoulder, “—is three thousand miles of nothing but superstructure and maintenance tunnels.”
Spears, Berry and Choi all nodded. Cook simply shrugged, and Holly didn’t seem to have an opinion either way.
“…Fair enough,” Conley agreed. “Lead on.”
It felt a lot like retracing their steps. Ray’s feet were sore and her knees were stiff by the time they’d negotiated literal miles.
Thank goodness, the trip wasn’t monotonous. Pretty soon the tunnel they’d been in gave way to a catwalk in a vast, echoing chamber so huge and dark that none of them could see the ceiling, floor, or far wall.
At least it had a handrail.
Beyond that, their path intersected a wide, flat tunnel more like a road than a walkway. In fact, there were even painted markings on the surface to divide it into four lanes.
They hurried across it into the shadows of the maintenance tunnel on the far side and paused to talk.
“Air’s def’nitely warmer,” Cook commented.
“A structure this huge must generate vast waste heat,” Choi said. “But you notice, this whole area’s pressurized and wired up? It’s used for something, you don’t go to the trouble of filling something with air unless you need to go there a lot.”
“Yeah, but used for what?” Conley asked. “All we’ve seen so far is empty tunnels.”
“Shh,” Spears hushed them, and raised his hand to his ear. They shut up and followed his example.
There was… noise. It was hard to make out at first, just a kind of distant thrumming hubbub, almost inaudible. There was a familiar quality to it that Ray couldn’t quite place.
Holly frowned. “That sounds like… Like…”
“What?”
“Like… it reminds me of… Times Square?”
They listened again. Ray had to admit… she was right. The bedlam they could faintly hear had all the same qualities as a crowded marketplace full of people raising their voices to be heard over one another.
“…Hunters don’t talk, do they?” she asked. “Could be the friendlier, squishier kind of ET?”
“That… makes sense,” Conley mused. “If a load of Hunters live up on this thing they must have… well, I guess they’d see them as livestock.”
“Slaves,” Spears scowled.
“Yeah.”
“I’m gonna check it out,” Cook decided. He stalked forward a few paces, then turned. “Anybody gonna back me up?”
Ray stepped forward. “I’m with you,” she said. She wasn’t enthusiastic about creeping forward into what might still be a nest of Hunters, but she was even less enthusiastic about leaving a mystery like that unresolved. Besides, she wanted to keep Cook where she could see him and rein in his impulses.
“Godspeed,” Spears wished them. “We’ll catch some rest.”
Ray nodded to Cook and they jogged as quietly as they could down the tunnel until it ended quite abruptly in a wide hatch much like the one Jamie had popped back in the sump. Ray rested her ear against it and listened.
“Well… I don’t know what a Hunter sounds like when it talks,” she said slowly, “But I don’t think they sound like that.”
“I’ma open it,” Cook said. He gripped the bar then paused as if waiting for something.
“…What?” Ray asked him.
“…Kinda figured you’d yell at me to stop or somethin’…” He seemed almost disappointed.
“No, we need to know what’s on the other side. For better or worse.”
“…Fair enough.” He heaved on the bar and again the door seal popped with a rush of air. They both held their breath but apart from getting louder the noise from beyond didn’t change.
Carefully, and grateful for the copious thick grease on the hinges that kept it from squeaking, they heaved the door open a crack and squirmed to get a good look through the gap.
The space beyond was as big as a football stadium, and crammed full of what could only be shanty-housing thrown together out of whatever scrap metal and other building materials the inhabitants had been able to scrounge up. Basic electrical lighting cast the whole thing in sharp white-blue light with deep shadows that the burning braziers, torches and candles scattered liberally around the place didn’t do much to alleviate.
There were aliens in there. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of them in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Most were the familiar-looking herd species from Hell: long-necked Vzk’tk, strutting Kwmbwrw, lumbering Vgork and the occasional shambling mound of a Guvnurag pushing patiently through the crowd, flanks aglow with a medly of colours.
One had a Corti riding on his shoulders. There was a feral-looking pack of furry mammalian guys who looked somewhere between a wolverine and a raccoon who could only be Gaoians, the first Ray had ever seen. There were Robalin with their funny wobbling tripedal gait, and even a Versa Volc skittering upside-down along the domed ceiling to fix a light.
The obvious heart of this slum community was a flared pillar of some kind that vanished into the ceiling. Assorted ragged cloth scraps had been strewn on it and it was painted with a number of what might have been sigils, but were more likely graffiti.
“That’s… a lotta slaves…” Cook breathed.
Ray nodded slowly. “Figures. The prey always outnumbers the predators.”
“What do we d—?”
He was interrupted by a deep, infra-bass roaring hoot of some kind that filled the whole cavern with sound. All of the aliens, to a one, dropped what they were doing and rushed toward the central column.
“…The fuck are they doin’?”
Ray opened the door wide enough to slip through. “We won’t find out from there.”
“You’re fuckin’ crazy!” he exclaimed, though it was with more of a chuckle than disbelief or accusation.
Their entrance was high on a wall, among gantries and scaffolding and the space’s original catwalks that had since been turned into the foundations for a kind of sprawling fungal shelf of impromptu hovels. There was some kind of a tapestry or something hanging over a nearby railing and she grabbed it and threw it around herself like a cloak. It was a pathetic disguise, but the best she could come up with at short notice and it hid her weapon at least.
A second tapestry gave Cook an equally woeful degree of concealment. Maybe from a distance to somebody who wasn’t paying attention they’d look like Gaoians, but really their best defence was going to be going undetected.
Fortunately, the whole crowd seemed fixated on the pillar. Cook and Ray darted over ramshackle gantries and walkways—without railings, this time— stuck to the shadows, moved swiftly and daringly, and always stayed high above the surging mob below so they could get a good look at the action.
The pillar’s base flared out into… kind of a trough. A huge, round, deep trough that was filling with an avalanche of apple-sized gray balls of what looked like dough. They looked unappetizing as hell, but the slaves were grabbing as many as they could carry, even fighting over them. Ray plainly saw one Vzk’tk go spinning away clutching its bleeding arm after a Gaoian swiped his claws at it.
“Down!” Cook hissed. Ray turned, saw what was coming, and flung herself down beside him. They slumped together among the garbage like they were a pair of utterly despondent throwaways who’d given up hope.
The trio of Locayl that Cook had seen coming trudged past without even glancing at them, as though they were invisible or beneath notice. Each was carrying two baskets full of the food balls, and they vanished into a hovel a few feet to Ray’s right. Seconds later, there was the clear sound of the door being barred from the other side.
More ETs were retreating with their hard-earned food below, leaving the latecomers, the weak and the sick to pick what scraps remained. By unspoken agreement, the two humans retreated before they were discovered. Back over the rooftops and catwalks, up the tiers, into the higher levels, back through the door.
Cook closed it, locked it and then leaned heavily against it to catch his breath.
“…The fuck was that?” he demanded.
Ray didn’t get the chance to answer before a figure stepped from the shadows: A Gaoian. He’d lost an eye and most of his ear somewhere, but he looked to be about the meanest and most well-nourished creature Ray had seen in there, and when he stepped forward into the light it practically glowed through the mohawk white crest of fur between his ears.
“That,” he said in English of all things, “was feeding time.”
Their new friend’s name was Garaaf, and he was nothing like Ray had imagined Gaoians might be. She’d always imagined they might be… fussy. Fidgety. Just like a raccoon, in fact.
She was feeling like kind of a bigot, now that she thought about it. Garaaf was a straight-backed grizzled survivor who didn’t seem to know or care that half his face was out of commission. He was poised, steady, serious and dignified… and apparently quite irritated to discover that they’d been out of contact even longer than him.
“I was…” He paused and considered his words. “…well, the Gaoian word translates as ‘shipfather.’ I was captain of the CGC Winter Fire, one of Mother-Supreme Giymuy’s escorts to the Dominion Capitol Station. Not sure how long ago that was in Human years.”
The whole crew were sitting, standing, or in Cook’s case prowling around listening to him. They were sitting on what was basically a pile of trash down one of the maintenance tunnels near the shanty town, using one of those basic arc lights for illumination. It cast long, infinitely deep shadows on the walls and totally killed Ray’s night vision, but apparently it was about all the slaves had for lighting. Occasionally, she was certain that various alien forms shuffled past in the dark, but none of them seemed to pay any attention to them.
“Giymuy was there to petition the Dominion on your species’ behalf,” he continued. “Something about it being the tenth anniversary of your first contact…” He made a peculiar ducking shrug and scratched at the stub of his ear. “…Also the tenth anniversary of our first contact with you. Did you ever hear of Sister Shoo?”
There were a round of shaken heads and he duck-nodded. “She made an impression,” he said wryly.
“Who was she?” Ray asked.
“I can’t pronounce her name right. Shoo Chang. Shee-yoooaw. Something like that.”
“Xiù?” Jamie asked. He looked suddenly intrigued. Garaaf duck-nodded sharply.
“That was it, yes. You know of her?”
“No. It’s just… That was my grandmother’s name.”
“Well, this one rescued a bunch of Females and cubs who got abducted off a colonial transport,” Garaaf explained. “She became an honorary member of the Clan of Females, became an advisor to the Mother-Supreme… it’s a long story. The point is, she made an impression and we committed our efforts to returning her home. That’s why Giymuy was at Capitol Station that day, among other reasons. Some of my more influential Brothers were talking in terms of a formal friendship and alliance between our peoples.”
“And that’s when the Hunters got you,” Spears surmised.
“Yes, and they used tactics we’d never seen before. Every shot we fired missed, every time we began an evasive maneuver they’d just blink into the perfect spot to counter it. At close quarters they tore the fleet to pieces. The Winter Fire lasted a while, but eventually we took a bad hit, lost our power cores, and…” He gestured around him. “Even if they hadn’t outnumbered us a hundred to one, we never stood a chance. In the end their swarmships just burrowed into the hull and the lucky ones died in the gunfight.”
“You weren’t so lucky,” Conley observed.
“Nope. Fusion claw, right across the face. Take it from me, losing an eye isn’t fun.” Garaaf chittered darkly. “I blacked out from the pain, woke up here alongside all my remaining Brothers.”
“And… your brothers?” Holly asked. Garaaf’s remaining ear twitched for a moment, then he turned his eye on her.
“Eaten,” he said. “One by one, over the years. Or worked to death, or died in some accident, or just vanished into some forsaken corner of this hive and never came back.”
“How did you survive?” Ray asked him. He issued that dark chitter again and flexed his claws with a grin.
“They don’t make you a Father of Clan Whitecrest just for looking pretty,” he said.
“Damn, bro,” Cook snorted. Garaaf ignored him.
“I’ve spent the last… what, five years? I think it’s been about that… Spent them trying to get back in touch with the Clan. I have… Fyu’s balls, I have a lot of intel on this place. But I can’t handle Hunters in close combat unless I get the drop on them alone. Which is fucking rare.”
“You have a plan?” Conley asked, sharply. For the first time since they’d come to the Ring he looked something other than melancholy.
Garaaf’s expression might almost have been a snarl. “Of course I have a plan,” he said. “I didn’t spend five years just licking my nuts! The obstacle is that my plan involves getting my paws on some tech that the Hunters don’t let their slaves even get a sniff of. Things like spatial distortion generators.”
“Locked up tight, huh?“” Cook asked.
“Tighter than a Goldpaw’s wallet,” Garaaf agreed. “And if I had somehow stolen any of it, they’d swarm the slave shanties and scour every square inch until it was recovered… then butcher all the slaves in that shanty as a warning to the others.”
“H-how many shanties are there?” Berry inquired. Garaaf did that lopsided shrug again.
“Too many,” he said. “That through there is a smallish one. And every year, a large proportion of the population die one way or another, and promptly get replaced. The newcomers are the only source of news we get here, and I haven’t seen any new Gaoians in more than a year. Some of the other species tell me Gao has a Great Father again…” He trailed off, then flicked an ear and rallied. “…If that’s true, then my people are g oing through some pretty historic shit right now.”
“Great Father?”
Garaaf sighed. “An ancient relic of bad times. He is the leader of the Gao, in every degree, and in every manner. Only the Females can make one, and… well, they never have.”
“So… a supreme ruler? A great general? Dictator, overlord?” Ray suggested.
“Something like that.” Garaaf agreed. “The last one, Fyu… well, he changed the world for the better, but he killed a lot of people in brutal ways to achieve it. Which makes it hard to believe the rumours about who the alleged Great Father is… but this is all off-topic.”
“What can they do if we do somehow establish contact?” Spears asked.
“…You really have been out of touch for a long time, haven’t you? Humans are big-league players nowadays. Every time your species takes a step, the galaxy trembles. The Dominion has split into factions and the Alliance war has been quiet ever since some Keeda-shit insane Human shock troopers literally delivered a Celzi admiral’s head to his Dominion counterpart’s desk.”
“Badass!” Cook commented, his face splitting into a wide predatory grin.
“Mm. They’re called… well, the reports vary. They’re a legend. I’ve heard different names from different species. There’s a common theme, though: Fire Troopers, Scorchers, Burning Warriors… Gaoians call them ‘The Heat.’
“Heat? What, they use flamethrowers or something?” Cook asked. He looked like a kid picturing space marines in his head. “Awesome.”
“Probably an acronym,” Jamie told him. “Y’know, like SEALs.”
“Killjoy.”
“Let’s hear this plan,” Ray said.
“There’s a breaker’s yard not far from here on the Ring,” Garaaf explained. “It’s where they strip down the Dominion and Alliance ships they capture and repurpose them into Swarmships. Don’t even bother to swap out the control software or anything, just update the character set and rebuild the ship around the core systems with a few of their own extras.”
“Guess that explains how I could fly that damn thing…” Spears said. Garaaf eyed him.
“What damn thing?” he asked.
“The… ship we flew up here on?”
Garaaf stared at him stupidly for a second, then he was on his paws in an instant: he looked frantic. “It’s still here? Nearby?”
“Uh… yeah. About… I guess twenty klicks, give or take. We came in through the air cooling system.”
“You stole a Hunter ship?!” Garaaf looked wildly at them and his remaining eye grew wide when they nodded. “How are its systems? Warp drive, power supply, comms array?”
Spears shrugged. “Uh… All good, as far as I can tell.”
Garaaf got right up in his space instantly. “Does it have a jump drive?!”
“Uh…” Spears cleared his throat and leaned around him to look at Choi. “Jamie?”
Choi thought about it then shook his head helplessly. “Hell if I know. I couldn’t tell what half the things plugged into the reactor were.”
“If it has a jump drive then… then we can get out of here!” Garaaf exclaimed. “I just need… I’ll need to—” He turned, dropped to four paws and blurred back toward the shanty before skidding to a halt and turning back. “Wait right here. I’ll be just a few minutes.”
“Garaaf, what—?” Ray demanded, but he turned and was gone in a flash of fur.
“What—?” Ray demanded again, this time of nobody in particular. They all shrugged, and slowly subsided.
True to his word, Garaaf was not long. He returned with a wide strip of fabric tied around his waist like a belt: Ray could just make out hard objects pressing outwards from inside it.
“We need to move. Quickly. If they find your ship then—”
“Garaaf,” Spears stood up. “We’re in. But you’d better explain as we go.”
The Whitecrest indicated his belt and actually whined. “I have the codes to get in touch with my Clan! All I need is a jump drive. I was going to suggest getting one from that breaker’s yard, but if you have a fully intact one, then… And if it’s working properly then we can convert it into an Array! We could bring troops here! Jump back home! Nuke this whole festering ring and send it crashing down! A-anything! Please, we mustn’t waste a second!”
They scrambled to their feet without further encouragement. They were all already footsore, tired, hungry and sleep-deprived, but with a promise like that to pursue…
Garaaf led the way, and they followed.