Starfighter Down Read online

  “Captain Casey Osprey,” a voice whip-cracked across the hangar.

  A dozen Imperial troopers in crimson body armor, and the tall, leanly muscular form of Admiral Miyaru, stood just inside the hangar’s closest entrance. The commander’s sharp chin was lifted, her broad flat nose upraised. A platinum mohawk crowned the commander’s head—her famous marker, the thing that Admiral Miyaru was known for in all the stories Casey had heard of her escapades during the Kryl War. That platinum mohawk was her one allowance, the one exception to her extraordinary discipline.

  Admiral Miyaru cut an imposing figure, just like any Fleet leader should. The starburst on her shoulders signified her rank, and the crimson and midnight blue uniform had been tailored to her form and crisply pressed.

  Casey swallowed against the lump in her dry throat, which was raw and sore. First she lost a pilot, now she lost her superior officer and squadron commander. The hits just kept coming.

  Admiral Miyaru made a single curt gesture. Come with me, it said plainly. Casey let her chin drop to her chest as she trudged slowly after the admiral.

  Eight

  As he guided the skimmer through the forest, Elya kept the cube on the seat between his legs. The light’s slow blinking distracted him as he drove; it still hadn’t connected. Something was blocking the tightbeam signal.

  The woman directed him to… where, exactly? Down a packed dirt path that resembled more of a game trail than a road. They climbed gently into the mountain range, winding back and forth for some twenty kilometers before the skimmer beeped a warning at him.

  “Well, I have good news and I have bad news,” Elya said. “Which do you want first?”

  The woman kept her eyes on the trail ahead. “It’s not much farther.”

  “I’m not sure we’re gonna make it much farther. The battery light just came on. That’s the bad news.”

  She turned to check the curled form of her sleeping son. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to wake him again so soon.” She turned back to the road. “What’s the good news?”

  “The good news is, I don’t think those groundlings are following us anymore.”

  She froze. Elya could almost smell the rank scent of fear creeping back into the cab of the skimmer. “They were following us?”

  “A new pack. They dogged us for a couple klicks before they ran out of stamina and fell back.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Elya glanced at the boy, whose eyes shot open perhaps as a subconscious reaction to his mother’s fear. The child stared raptly up at Elya, eyes wide and hands clenched in the blanket his mother had laid over him—the emergency blanket from Elya’s pack.

  Elya supposed he couldn’t blame the colonists for being frightened. He would have been too if he had fled his home by climbing into a skimmer with a Fleet pilot whose uniform was spattered with yellow Kryl blood. Elya may have saved them from certain death, but that made him more dangerous, not less.

  If he was being honest, Elya was just as scared as they were and bad at hiding it. As a former refugee, this situation was not unfamiliar. The only difference was that Elya had had years to process what he’d gone through. To find himself back in this situation was surreal—and heavy. He felt the weight of responsibility to get this woman and her son to safety, just as his own mother had done for him and his two brothers. He found himself thinking about the money he’d sent home only a handful of hours ago—had it really been just this morning? What was his mother doing at this moment? He found himself sympathizing with her plight as a younger woman who’d had to escort three boys on an interstellar pilgrimage.

  Feeling the woman’s eyes studying him, Elya wrenched himself away from his memories and cleared his throat. “Anyway, I don’t think the skimmer’s got much juice left.”

  “Here’s the turnoff,” she said, pointing to the side of the road.

  “Where are you taking us?” She knew this country better than he did, and after that shuttle got shot out of the sky he didn’t have many options left. He was hoping that gaining some altitude would resolve whatever interference was preventing his cube from connecting to the Paladin. It hadn’t happened yet, and until it did he couldn’t hope for rescue. Maybe he needed to go higher still.

  Elya planned out his next moves—get these two refugees somewhere safe and take a closer look at the cube. Even if he couldn’t fix it, he’d still have time to find somewhere conspicuous to send up a smoke signal for the Search and Rescue team to home in on his location.

  It wasn’t lost on him, however, that the fleet didn’t intend to be here twenty-four hours from now. They might delay a few hours, given the situation… but Elya was only one man. He couldn’t count on them changing plans just for him. Admiral Miyaru had built a reputation during the Kryl War as a fearless leader. Unflinching at the helm of a destroyer. She wouldn’t wait long.

  Sighing out his frustration, Elya guided the skimmer carefully onto the turnoff that the woman indicated. They bumped up a steeper, rocky incline into the foothills.

  At this elevation, the forest thinned out. It was still a wooded area, but it wasn’t the thick jungle of the valley bottom. Up here, the trees were stocky and sparse, gathered in clumps among the foothills.

  “So,” Elya said, “are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “Yeah, you said that before.”

  “There was a priest,” she said. “A priest of Animus. He comes to our village twice a year to make Solstice offerings.”

  “Local Solstice?”

  “Old Earth calendar.”

  Followers of Animus celebrated the Summer Solstice once every three hundred and sixty-five days—and a quarter if the priest was a stickler for details. According to tradition, this ritual was the single unbroken thread tying humanity back to Old Earth. He’d once heard a priest claim their religion originated during the Great Migration when our ancestors left their dying homeworld behind, but no one knew for sure. The history from that era was jumbled and incomplete.

  Modern practice had long ago switched the Solstice celebrations to match the summer and winter solstice on each colony which observed the holiday—so that each planet celebrated their local Summer Solstice during the time in which their planet’s axial tilt was positioned to give them the maximum amount of light and warmth from their sun. In other words, on the actual solstice as the residents of that planet experienced it.

  Only the most fanatical sects kept to the Old Earth calendar. His mother had come from such a family. Elya remembered how she kept a separate calendar to track the holiday, which was staggered from the local rotation of Yuzosix (a two hundred and twenty-day orbit). It was confusing, but to a kid it had seemed magical. When he was very young, Elya had been ecstatic to learn that the Summer Solstice fell on different days, in different seasons, each year. It was through this offset rhythm that he first came to realize that planets orbited their suns at different speeds and cadences, dancing to the beat of their own individual gravity. Once the door to that knowledge opened, each time the Solstice came, Elya felt like he was witnessing a wild spirit manifest itself in reality. From there, the whole universe opened up for him. Though she never let go of the Solstice traditions, his mother had left that sect when she was sixteen. She ran away with his father, they were granted a homestead charter on Yuzosix and the rest, as they say, is history.

  The woman next to him must have mistaken his silent musings for hesitation. Into the pause, she spoke again. “The priest showed up last week, after Robichar received the Emperor’s evacuation order, and told us that we had another option. Instead of fleeing, we could join him in the mountains. He promised to keep us safe.”

  Elya stared at her with bugged-out eyes and his mouth hanging slightly open. His foot came off the accelerator and the skimmer slowed to a stop. “Safe? Here? That’s insane.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “And you believe him?”

  She sh
rugged. “I don’t disbelieve him. Besides, what choice do we have now? You saw what happened to the shuttle!”

  It was difficult to argue that point. Elya took a slow, deep breath in and blew it out. It sounded grumpier than he intended.

  “Listen. Do you know about Yuzosix?”

  When she shook her head, Elya cringed inwardly. Almost everyone he had ever met in the Fleet knew the story of his home planet. It was such common knowledge that Elya avoided the topic just so he didn’t get pity stares from those who knew his history.

  This woman, though, was from the middle-of-nowhere. “The Kryl invaded my homeworld when I was a boy,” Elya explained. “Ten years it’s been. There’s nothing human left there now. The entire planet is a honeycombed Kryl hive and everyone who insisted on staying behind was slaughtered. So, no, you can’t stay here. It’s not safe. Not in that village, not in the mountains, not anywhere. When the Fleet comes to pick me up—and they will—you and the boy can come with me. I’ll take you to the Paladin, and you can rejoin the rest of the refugees later.”

  The woman grimaced. She glanced down at the cube between his legs. “And that thing’s going to get us there?”

  Elya felt the blood rush to his face. He was momentarily glad that the sun had disappeared behind the mountaintops and the fading light masked his features.

  “I’ll get it working. It got busted up when I landed. Once we find somewhere to hunker down for the night, I’ll be able to take a closer look at it.”

  She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Elya wasn’t interested in arguing with her any more than he already had. He knew his own skill with bots and electronics. Whether he had the time and tools to fix it was another question.

  Why was he trying so hard to help her? Elya turned around to look at the boy. Shame squeezed its hand around his throat. “I’m sorry. I’m glad you know somewhere safe we can hunker down for the night.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll go with you to where you think this priest is hiding. But I’m not going to stick around. And you shouldn’t either.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  He sighed. “If we’re gonna travel together, we should know each other’s names, don’t you think? I’m Elya.” He cleared his throat. “I’m a starfighter pilot with the Solaran Defense Forces.”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “Really? I couldn’t tell.” Her sweeping gesture took in the cube and his Imperial uniform.

  Elya opened his mouth to defend himself, then let out a bark of laughter. People on fringe colonies had a reputation for not always being kind to Imperial soldiers… but he definitely deserved that one. “Fair enough. It’s been a rough day.” A pinching feeling in the small of his back was a testament to his words. Those groundlings had done a number on him.

  Elya broke eye contact with the woman and turned fully around in the seat to gaze at the boy, who took a panicked breath and widened his eyes even further. His eyes were already like saucers, big white rings around turquoise irises that shone in the fading pink light, just like his mother’s but sharper somehow. In addition to his striking eyes, the boy had a round chin, hair the color of Robichar’s brownish-red soil and sun-kissed skin.

  The boy was deeply tanned from spending so much time outdoors. Rural life had been good to him. Elya had lost some of his own pigment since he’d become a starfighter. He spent so much time on space stations and destroyers and in the shielded cockpit of his Sabre that he didn’t actually get much sun these days. Vitamin D supplements didn’t cut it. They had tanning decks on most space stations, but while the rest of his squadmates were there, Elya typically stayed behind, choosing to use the extra time to do additional training, or perhaps drafting and discarding long messages to his mom and his brothers, Arn and Rojer, rather than join his squad gabbing and gambling.

  You don't have to do this alone. He felt his face redden when he realized he was parroting Casey Osprey’s words in his mind. You’re not a refugee anymore.

  The boy cocked his head, watching him warily. Elya smiled affably and held up his hands, trying to show the boy that he was no threat. Perhaps the kid was still in shock from the Kryl encounter. He would have been. In fact, Elya had realized in recent years that the fear he’d experienced during the evacuation from Yuzosix, and during the subsequent dark flight on the Mammoth longhauler, had lingered for years. He had suffered a combination of habitual fidgeting paired with a low-key yet persistent distrusting paranoia. He hadn’t known it at the time. He’d been angry and scared and isolated, and it had taken years for the chop to settle.

  This boy must have been experiencing something very much like what Elya went through. The difference was, Elya could help him. Or at least try.

  Elya crossed his arms on the back of the seat. “Now you know my name. What’s yours?”

  “His name is Hedrick,” the woman said. “I’m Heidi.”

  “It’s nice to meet you both.” He kept his eyes on the boy. “I’m really sorry about what those Kryl did to your village, but I’m glad I found you when I did. I’m glad I was able to help.”

  The boy sniffed and nodded reluctantly. Tears filled his eyes, making them shimmer and swim like the ocean they resembled. The combination of dark hair and turquoise eyes was unusual. Elya’s own eyes were a rich brown like his mother’s.

  “Me too,” the boy said, his voice barely above a whisper. He cast his eyes into his lap. Hedrick had let the blanket slip down and Elya saw that he was not kneading the blanket, but rather a tiny bot in his hand. It was the kind that they gave to children when they were old enough not to try to eat them; they often resembled Old Earth animals.

  His was a turtle.

  The shell on its back was carved with sun symbols from the religious sect of Animus. Chips of silver paint showed that the coloring of the symbols had been worn away over time. The turtle’s head popped out, and it crawled around on the boy’s lap before settling down and retracting its head.

  “Nice bot,” Elya said. “Did you see mine?”

  Elya snapped his fingers and Hedgebot crawled up from the floor to perch on the headrest at eye level. It chittered in digital tones at the turtle in the boy’s lap.

  Hedrick smiled. “What’s he do?”

  Hedgebot gave off a soft blue nimbus. “He helps keep me safe. And he’ll help keep you safe, too, while you’re with me.”

  “How does he do that?” the boy asked.

  “When he detects danger nearby, he turns red. See how he’s blue now?” Hedrick nodded. “He’s also a pretty good pilot. Saved my life up there today.” Elya pointed at the sky.

  Something about this twist of the conversation turned the boy off. He wouldn’t say anything else, though Elya tried to coax more out of him.

  “He’s had a rough day,” Heidi said.

  “Totally understandable. Now, let’s see if we can find that priest of yours.”

  The skimmer’s battery died four kilometers later. Though the sun had stepped behind the mountain peaks, there was light enough to last for two or three hours of hiking. They climbed out of the skimmer and Elya hiked his ruck onto his back.

  Neither Heidi nor the boy had time to pick up supplies of their own, so there wasn’t that much to carry. Elya’s pack held a couple liters of water, a dozen pre-packaged rations, the insulated blanket, flares, and a few other necessary items. He had his hatchet and his blaster as well, so even if they had to camp for the night, their chances looked good.

  He told Heidi so.

  “We won’t need to camp,” she said. “It’s not much farther.”

  They followed the game trail into increasingly rocky terrain. They had climbed more than two or three thousand meters in elevation since leaving the valley, and by this point, trees had been replaced by sparse shrubs and the grass had all but thinned to dirt.

  They followed the trail as it wound ever upward. Even had the skimmer’s battery lasted longer, they wouldn’t have been able to use it to navigate this terr
ain, with the narrow trail and the ever-larger boulders. He was relying entirely on Heidi’s ability to lead them to wherever this priest had holed himself up. Elya fretted silently, yet Heidi hurried onward, sure-footed and solid. And the boy, though he tended to drag his feet and kick small rocks and roots, did not complain and was careful to keep close. Hedgebot, glowing a soft blue, lit the boy’s way while Hedrick made a game of trying to catch him.

  They hiked, stopping occasionally to rest and take sips of the water in Elya’s pack. He was careful to conserve it, even showing the boy how to project how long the water would last by counting the ticks on the side of each bottle.

  Heidi stopped at the next fork. The trail to the right wound up along an exposed slope, its scree-covered incline angling down into darkness. The other way meandered left and then cut into a ravine.

  He couldn’t quite tell from here, but Elya thought the ravine walked down into a canyon and was reminded of the flight simulation he’d run just that morning. Had the AI somehow known that he would have to navigate a canyon later that day? He shook his head. Those training runs that morning seemed so long ago. There was no way the shipboard AI could have known he would come here. An uncanny coincidence, that was all. Still, it unnerved him.

  Heidi hadn’t moved.

  “Which way?” he asked.

  She muttered under her breath, glancing back and forth until she settled on the left-hand path. “This way.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sort of.”

  “How sure is sort of sure?”

  “I followed his directions…”

  “You’ve never been here?”

  “Well, no, but it seemed so simple…”

  Elya groaned. Heidi had no clue where she was going. She was going to take them up into the mountains and get them all lost. The water and rations in his pack suddenly seemed much more precious. They only had enough light for maybe an hour before they would have to make camp. He itched to take the cube out of his pack and try it again but fought down the urge as well as his mounting frustration. He took three full breaths as they taught him to do in pilot training to maintain calm and focus. He tried to detach himself from the situation, to assess it logically. He reviewed the standard operating procedures for a downed starfighter pilot.