In the darkened twilight of the ship’s bowels, Mila twisted the two wires together and wrapped them in tape, then flipped the switch to re-establish the current, and the ship rattled anew, pieces falling away. One more hurdle overcome on the way to a trade, a single one on which their future depended.
“Alright dad, let her roar,” she said over the comms.
“Strap down,” he said. “Ignition in ten…”
She didn’t strap down. Mila pushed gently against the walls, until she was floating exactly in the middle of the long, dark corridor. When the engines ignited, the whole ship rumbled and rattled. The walls started moving, and the ship picked up speed around her. She let the floor rush towards her and landed softly as her magboots clicked into place.
She found her dad in the control room. His tattoos swirled in delicate traces around his bald head, bunching up around his spine before flowing down his arms until his entire hands were covered. Her own tattoos were spindly traces flowing up her fingers, barely visible, the minimum necessary to interface with the systems.
“You feel that?” her father asked, hand against the wall, feeling the rumbling of the engines. “She is purring.”
“She is falling apart.” Mila smiled.
“Nonsense,” he came over to wrap her in an embrace. “You can fix her, no matter what,” his smile wavered and his features turned serious. “But I’m afraid I got some bad news. It's time to rotate your apprenticeship, new things to learn.”
“Already?” Mila’s shoulders sagged. “Do I have to go to Burt down in the reactor?”
“Worse. Much worse, I’m afraid.”
“What is it?” she whispered.
“I’m afraid you're stuck with me,” his facade finally broke and he chuckled.
She hit her fists lightly against his chest. “You scared me!”
“You should be scared, pumpkin. I’m not going easy on you.”
“Have you ever heard them sing?” her father asked, eyes never leaving the screens, tracking the endless flow of data, making sure the ship didn’t fall apart while she piloted.
“Who?” Mila asked, looking around the crew in the control room. “The Family?”
“The stars,” he said. He pulled her hand out of the control socket where she interfaced with the ship and slipped his own arm in. A sound whispered across the control room. A rumbling bass, rising and falling in waves, pierced by sharp highs that quickly faded away.
“What do they say?” she asked.
“They tell us the past. And they tell us what lies ahead. You just need to learn their language.”
In the captain’s seat, her father’s seat, she closed her eyes. The sounds seemed random, a discordant array of screaming voices and grumbling lows.
“Alright,” he said, removing his arm from the socket. “We’re approaching the deceleration point. How many days?”
“One-thousand and thirty-three.”
“Yes. Always remember that number. It is the most important one for a Floater. How long it takes to start moving, to reach near-light cruising speed, and how long it takes to stop. We’ll start gently. Light pulses of the engines, and check the computer.”
Mila inserted her arm into the socket again. With her eyes closed, displays and data flooded her vision.
“Do we trust the readings?” her father asked.
“Assume ten percent error margin,” she replied.
“Good. Now watch for the point. Look at the trajectory. You will see the right moment.”
She waited, the timer ticking down as the ship sped near light-speed. It reached zero. She fired a short burst of the side thrusters. The ship flipped, tumbling around itself slowly.
She gave a new burst, bringing it to a relative stop, engines facing their destination.
“Perfect,” her father said, hand on her shoulder. “Now let her scream!”
She fired the main engines, and a new star was born in the void.
With slight twitches of her hand, Mila brought the ship into a matching trajectory over the moon of swirling green and blue, the roaring engines finally silent after their long journey across the darkness. In a gentle arc, she maneuvered until the
The station had been carved out of an asteroid, its hollowed out shell spinning fast enough for gravity to take hold. The hole at its mouth ran all the length across the station, ships spilling out at the other end. She followed the gently pulsing lights in her virtual vision, a track she saw with closed eyes, guiding the ship into a berth.
When the ship finally slipped inside, the whole universe spun, too fast for her eyes to track as the station raced around them, forever rotating along the axis. She fought down the sudden wave of nausea and tried to control the ship, firing the lateral thrusters, spinning the ship faster and faster and faster until it synchronized with the station and it seemed they were not moving at all. Pistons ejected from the station’s hangar and connected with the
In the control room, the Family cheered and clapped at the perfect docking. Jared even whistled, and her cheeks turned red.
“That was perfect, Mila,” her father said as she got out of the captain’s chair and disconnected from the socket. He wrapped her in a hug.
“Dad, you're embarrassing me,” she said in the warmth of his arms.
“They're all proud of you, the whole Family,” he whispered, before releasing his grasp. “Now go have some fun. Just remember the rule…”
“Don’t get attached to earthers,” she recited back.
The station reeked. A thousand different smells and sounds assaulted her senses. The corridors were vast, stretching as far as the eye could see, flanked by shops and offices. The crowd seemed to part before her, the earthers shrinking out of the way, casting sideways glances.
They seemed almost a different breed. So many colors, so many styles and so much hair and beards. It was opulent and inefficient, it was jarring, but it was also full of life. She wandered aimlessly, going where people went.
Mila stumbled into a plaza where the ceiling loomed several meters above her head, bare stone still showing the edges of the station, pocketed with access tunnels and shafts. Lights and ribbons dangled and snaked across the walls. A local celebration, she guessed. On a stage at the center, surrounded by a small audience, performers danced and swirled as a strange melody filled the air.
Her stomach rumbled and she followed her nose to the restaurant that was little more than a balcony set into the wall, bright-red letters reading
She approached the counter, and the man narrowed his eyes at her, but did not flinch.
“What will it be, miss?” he asked.
“Whatever’s giving off that smell,” she said, leaning against the metal top.
“That would be the rukid steak. With fries. No offense miss, but money up front.”
“Sure,” she pressed her finger against the reader, touching her tattoo to the interface. It beeped and flashed green.
“Nice trick,” the man said, checking his register to confirm the payment. “Have a seat. It will only be a few minutes.”
The chair was too small, even for her, so she slumped into it awkwardly and stared into the crowd that stared back at her.
Fred emerged from the restaurant, plastic tray in hand, even a soda she did not pay for. He set it down on the table and her mouth watered at the smell.
“Mind if I sit down?” he asked, dragging a chair and sinking into it before she could respond.
She watched him, popping crunchy fries into her mouth. It turns out, actual oil makes all the difference.
“They say all you floaters are rich,” he said quietly.
“Each of us is as wealthy as the whole,” she replied.
“Could you spend that wealth if you needed to?”
It was her turn to narrow her eyes at him. “Maybe.”
“If you can’t, then call someone who can. I hear things, you know? Customers like to brag. I got something you need to know.”
She paid. Only two-thousand credits. Maybe a fortune to him, but a drop in the bucket for their budget.
Whispering, eyes tracking the crowd, he told her, and even before he finished talking she sprinted back to the ship.
It was too late.
The governor’s voice boomed over the comms, resounding in the ship’s control room. “Defective respirators, copper disguised as titanium, the list goes on!”
“Governor,” her father said, eyes closed as he interfaced with his console. “We are honest traders. We delivered each order as agreed, you can…”
“You won’t weasel your way out of this one, floater. Every single company you delivered to has filed an official complaint. You will return every single penny, and you will compensate us for the costs. This will set back production…”
She saw her father tense up, his limbs twitch as the governor raged on.
“How much to end this charade?” her father finally asked.
“A reasonable man, good,” the governor said. “I can be reasonable too. How about we round it down to ten million credits?”
She heard her father grinding his teeth. It was their entire savings, all that they had, their only means of keeping the ship stocked and running new trades. A fortune, on top of the already stolen cargo. The governor held all the cards, and he knew it.
“Everyone strap in, right now!” her father shouted over the ship’s comms, before switching back to the conversation with the governor. “We don’t have that much liquid. We will need to pay in goods.”
“Freaking floaters… fine, send me your inventory.”
“Everyone strapped in?” her father asked over the ship. No one spoke up. “Brace yourselves.”
Thrusters fired. Strapped to an acceleration chair, Mila felt the ship straining against the pistons that held it to the dock. Metal groaned and tore, a horrible sound. Then it snapped.
The ship lurched to the side, before the thrusters fired again and she was rocked from side to side. The main engines lit up, roaring to life with all their power. Behind them, metal melted and the station vented, bodies spilling out.
Mila closed her eyes, unable to witness the destruction. She hoped Fred was not floating out there. But then she remembered: they would all be dead of old age before the Family reached their next destination. All but the governor and those like him, those that could afford eternal life, purchased by the sweat and blood of others.
One-thousand and thirty-three days. Cruising at the edges of light-speed, they were finally safe, for now. The glare of the pursuing ships was bright enough to obscure their numbers as all their drive’s fires merged into a single sphere of plasma. Her father paced in a circle in the control-room while the Family looked at him with doubt in their eyes.
“Home,” her father said. “That’s the only way. We have to face them. We have to fight them, there won’t be any outrunning this one.” He turned to Luna, the navigator. “Plot a course to the Hive.”
The tension crept into every aspect of their lives. Carefully planned routines now tilted off course. Fights among family. Shifts missed. Not a single shot had been fired but the first blow had already been dealt. The
The black hole dominated the sky, the accretion disk swirling with plasma from a dying star. Pulses of radiation and light burst from the titan. Amidst the chaos, the Hive orbited, hidden in the maelstrom. Pods and hubs connected by flowing tubes and slim corridors, piled around each other without any order, a bee’s hive grown out of control. Here and there asteroids spun, exhaust fans bleeding red-hot, somehow floating inside the Hive. This was the home Mila did not even remember, despite being born there.
In the darkness, new drives flared to life. A few, then dozens. A fleet, their fleet, their only defense, all that the Hive could muster. They burned hot, ready to intercept the pursuers. The
They parked just out of reach from the Hive. Long tendrils came snaking out, connecting with airlocks. Mila took a shuttle with her father and he guided the craft into the chaos, zipping between nodes and umbilicals, heading deeper in. They docked with one of the largest structures she had seen, a massive cylinder rotation over a spoke.
She expected the same bare metal walls of her ship, but in the station she found herself floating in space without a suit. The walls curved all around, showing the sky itself, the glittering milky way to the left and the looming black hole to the right. Even the airlocks glittered with stars.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” her father smiled back at Mila.
“Incredible,” she whispered, extending a hand to touch the walls, to make sure they existed.
“You’ll have time to see it all. Come, we need to speak with the Council.”
He led her to the rail and they boarded the metallic sphere that floated in the air, slightly bobbing as they boarded. It sped forward across magnetic tracks.
Concussions rippled over the station, a low grumbling. The lights went out. The capsule ground to a stop, then clunked down to the floor as red emergency lights came to life.
“They got through…” her father whispered. “Get out, now!”
He undid his own straps, working the door until it popped open. Mila’s heart thundered in her chest loud enough to compete with the concussions that now rocked the station from all sides.
“Come on!” her father extended a hand and she let him drag her out into the rail tunnel. He pulled her along until he found a hatch. A few turns of the wheel and it popped open into a corridor.
“Run!” he pushed her forward. “Take a left up ahead.”
An explosion sounded behind her, the entire world shaking and rumbling. Mila turned back and saw a hole in the wall, a metal flower, where some projectile had burst through and metal peeled. Wind rushed against her face: there was a leak.
“Don’t stop!” her father pushed her forward. Airlocks slid open before her, closing in their wake as she propelled herself along as fast as she could.
“It’s all my fault,” her father said. “I underestimated their greed.”
“It’s not your fault, dad, they were trying to extort us. Damn greedy–”
“No, Mila,” he interrupted. “I led them straight back here. It’s the lanes. The governors, the presidents, the kings… they will choke the trade between planets.”
“We’ll worry about that later dad, where are we going?”
“Dock 28-B… You're all grown up now… a surprise…”
“I don’t understand.”
The silence stretched.
She looked back, and saw her father floating towards her, unmoving.
“Dad?” she grabbed on to him, bringing him to a stop. “Dad?”
She saw thick droplets floating in the air. She turned him around. A jagged piece of metal stuck out from his abdomen. Blood squirted, drifting.
“Dad speak to me,” she pleaded, hands on his face. “Dad!”
“Promise…” his words came as a whisper as bloody foam bubbled from his lips. “Survive…”
Mila stumbled through corridors, half blind, tears running down her face as people rushed in panic and the entire station groaned under the assault. She could feel the impacts rippling across stone and metal, as metal was peeled like paint with dying shrieks, as entire stations bloomed into clouds of debris.
Dock 28-B. She peered into the airlock and saw an umbilical stretching into the distance across the door. She hammered the button and the airlock hissed open. Hand by hand, she propelled herself forward into the semi-transparent tube and saw the destruction. From the darkness, missiles spewed forth, tracing fire across the sky. Rail-guns fired, projectiles smashing into the stations, blowing shrapnel in every direction. But ahead, connected to the umbilical, was the ship. Her ship.
The silver spear shone with the light of explosions, a regal creature in the midst of chaos, patiently waiting for her. Inside, the walls were smooth and polished, a brand new craft, the peak of Floater tech.
In the control-room, she slipped into the captain’s station and inserted her arm into the viscous liquid of the socket, feeling the cold metal folds envelop her skin. With a thought, she disconnected the umbilical, and the vessel floated free.
The ship roared to life with barely a shiver, auxiliary thrusters firing with precision. She guided it, searching for a clear path as debris thudded against the hull. Even now she could see the elegance, the ship dancing to her whim, predicting her instincts.
Finding a clear path, she fired the main engines. Acceleration crushed her down into the gel of the chair.
She kept pushing.
Faster.
Forces kept building.
Not one-thousand and thirty-three days, but four-hundred.
Despite the name inscribed on the craft,
A mote in the sky, drifting with the wind, when she was not curled up on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees, sobbing, pitying herself, cursing the damned earthers. They pursued her still, but they were months behind her much faster ship, capable of pushing more gees than any of them. The silver spear sped across the vacuum of interstellar space, decades speeding past in months as she raced at the edge of light-speed, listening to the stars rage ahead and cry behind and remembering all that her father had been.
She had a purpose–revenge–but the means escaped her. The
In her head, she saw herself looming over the governor, a gun to his head as he pleaded in vain. In the few moments of clarity across the long years drifting into the void, she knew it would never happen. As the ship burned into the system she was certain it would never happen. As she pointed her ship to the station, she knew what had to happen.
A force compelled her, some unspoken instinct driving her actions, moving her hands without her will. Her eyes finally focused, and she saw herself for what seemed the first time, reflected on the silvery walls. Her limbs were long and delicate, pale and hairless. Her fingernails had been replaced with the tattoos, the nanos flowing like fluid metal over her skin, swirling up to her face to frame her large, round eyes and shallow nose. Floaters were a different breed, to be hated, oppressed, taken advantage of in any way without even the need of an excuse.
Mila ignored all the hails, all the blaring comms, all the computers screaming their alarms. There was only one thing she could do. She cut off the engines, no longer braking, no longer one-thousand and thirty-three days, but only a handful.
She could see the moon now, the fragmented continents shining green beneath the clouds. The station was a little shadow in orbit from which ships emerged like flies. She cut all non-essential functions, letting the ship drift dark and fast.
The station loomed into view, the rotating rock coated in metal. Somewhere inside the governor hid. The anger fled her, in those last seconds. She remembered her father’s last plea, a dying wish she had buried with rage. It would not matter. It would not bring back her father or her family, it wouldn’t fix a damned thing. But it was too late. One-thousand and thirty-three days, but she had none left.
The
Metal rained down on the moon.
Tsunamis of molten rock and ash swallowed the continents.
And people not yet born paid the price of a single man’s greed and a new star sang a song of sorrow into the void.