Black Hull (11 page)

“You’re on your way out of here. I
suggest you don’t prevent that,” she replied, her fingers caressing pistol
plastisteel.

Maybe she is a cellbot. Can I beat her?

“Going to shoot me?” he said. One finger,
then another, then his whole hand slid off her shoulder and glided slowly
across the two rises of her chest.

“Whatever I have to do. It’s nothing
personal.”

She’d be tough, but I could kill her.
Twist her neck. Leave her in the backroom. Droids wouldn’t know the difference.

Mick turned to the cruiser behind him:
XJ stared apprehensively at them, confusion droid-mimicked on his face.

Would he come at me too? Defend her?
Reason tried to
claw its way back into his mind:
This is way too risky for what’s at stake:
Selby’s kisses. Christopher’s high fives. Little Mickey’s laugh. Karen’s smile.
There’s no point Mick—let it go. Ride this out. Have a little patience. A
little faith.

Anger paused, receded: the volcano in
Mick’s chest withdrew from its channel and crushed expectations released upon
his brow, steaming his helmglass. He closed his eyes, sighed.

“Hurry. This ship’s a piece of shit,
we’ll never catch him,” he said.

Sera smirked, then walked back into
Melbot’s chamber to retrieve her brother. Mick joined XJ at the bay door.

She returned with a befuddled GR. They
started the cruiser engine. With a gentle whine it launched spaceward, leaving
Mick’s frozen moon of hope and portal home.

“There’s a reason you pay good money for
a T-jump operator,” muttered GR, filled with a robot-sense of personal failure.

“Don’t be sad GR. Come play chess. I
have a new opening—it’s called the Accelerated Dragon. I need a victim.”

“You cheer me and seek to send me lower
all in the same breath,” GR returned, showcasing the best smile a dock-loading
droid can produce.

A blip appeared on the viewscreen in the
cockpit. Another blip. Two, side by side, hovering near the edge of the Bessel
solar system. Hardly moving.

“Radar detects two ships. He never left
the system,” Sera said.

Two—but who else besides the Cozon
thief? A rendezvous of some sort.

“Class?” Mick asked.

“Another light-class.”

“And we’re coming at them in an
intersystem cruiser?”

“Damn right. Do you think I control
Bessel 2 because of my strength alone?”

“Oh dear,” XJ joined. “Sera’s up to a
scheme. GR, GR!”

XJ bolted from the cockpit as fast as
his hydraulics allowed.

“What’s with him?” Mick asked.

“Let’s say I’m hit and miss. Most of the
time my plans work, sometimes they don’t.”

“She makes entirely irrational
decisions, incalculably inconsistent with probability,” XJ rattled as he
motored away.

A gambler. I do like this woman.

Mick eyed the cords of Sera’s forearms
as they tensed, vigorously punching command after command into her console. Her
body worked as a limb of the ship, directed by the laws of physics and her gut.

“We’ll sweep them,” she said.

Sweeping: Flying below a ship and
launching a targeted EMP at its main thrusters. Cruisers can sweep under
anything bigger than a tugship—they can’t sweep under a light-class.

“You can’t,” Mick said. “They’re too
small.” He eyed the radar blips, their signatures indicating two light-classes:
the Cozon and one mystery vessel. “They’ve seen us too.”

“Sure they have. But you’ve never seen
me fly.”

The urge to take over rose in him:
rip
the controls from her, throw her to the ground, fly the ship with some sense.

The cruiser dropped, turbulence shook
Mick to his knees. Metal on metal issued from the back of the ship: XJ and GR
had fallen. The cruiser’s plastisteel prow hurtled directly at the two
light-classes. Mick stood up to behold the collision: On the viewscreen, four
giant thrusters flared, the light-classes attempting maneuvers of their own to
avoid the kamikaze strike of the cruiser.

Crashing us into the light-classes;
she’s sweeping under them my ass. Suicide run.

“What the fuck are you doing!” Mick
yelled.

Mick grabbed at the pilot’s stick. A
swift elbow caught his temple. White light flashed; shock led to a delayed
sensation of pain.

“Jesus Christ,” he moaned, rubbing his
head.

The light-class ships roared away at a
ninety degree angle from the cruiser.

“They’re priming plasma missiles,” XJ
said, returning to the crammed cockpit with GR.

“They won’t hit,” Sera said.

The cruiser barrel rolled under the
Cozon and fired upward. A targeted EMP struck its main thrusters. The unknown
light-class fired two plasma missiles: condensed firecrackers of coiling light
snaked toward them. Sera rocked back on her stick, pulling everyone to the
floor.

“Hold onto something,” she said. Mick
grabbed the nearest metal rod, XJ’s leg: together they slid out of the cockpit.

Bright orange plasma missiles exploded
upon the starboard hull of the Cozon.

“Shit!” Sera screamed. “Not supposed to
hit my own ship.”

A band of grey smoke shrouded the
crippled ship. She turned the stick and punched a button. The cruiser rolled on
its side and shot into the cloud. Mick rushed back into the cockpit.

“There he is,” Mick said. On the
viewscreen, the silhouette of a light-class, thrusterless, floated.

“He sees us,” she said.

“Get under him!” Mick yelled.

“Can’t—too late.”

“We can’t take a hit in a cruiser.”

“We won’t if we park on the Cozon,” she
said. The cruiser shook, its landing claws hooking onto the Cozon’s deck.
“We’re gambling that they won’t kill each other.”

Mick waited for the orange flash of
plasma missiles; nothing came.

“What now?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Is she a robot, AM, just like the
others? No—she’s too warm inside.

Sera smiled. Mick wondered at her
sanity. XJ stared out a porthole at the light-class squared against them. GR
crawled to his feet, testing his capacitors.

Baroque chamber music filled a pillared
hall of white. A woman clad in a waterfall of tight gold silk pushed her way
toward a broad-shouldered man in black. Dark handsome eyes turned to receive
the luminous form. Her lips curled with awkward excitement—sprightly eyes wove
a net about the man’s future, and the woman who’d earlier that night dug into
his side released her hold, slipped away into the warmth of the dinner party.

“Dance?” she asked.

“To this?” he replied.

She held out her hand, he took it.

Where have I seen her before? Somewhere,
a long time ago. She’s not a student. Somewhere distant, close.

Violins caressed his neck and arm.
Foreign movement confounded them both, and the heat of the hall increased.
Gentle gold upon a smooth black suit—her hair eased out, flew about, the cosmos
intact therein. The wild scent of flowers twined with the musk of man. Mick
sighed, believing his luck couldn’t get better: a F.R.I.N.G.E. interview the
following Monday, and her tonight. His being engorged, flooded with optimism.

“From what time and place do you come?”
he asked, smiling.

They twirled about in strange harmony,
spirits destined to know one another and on the cusp of understanding that
truth: his arm explored, his fingers vagabonds. She breathed a hot secret into
his ear:

“Here I am,” she said.

She’d said that. And what had it meant?

The night wore on between dance and wine
and concertos. A separation began, spirits departing, leaving one another to
rejoin their solitary dreams.

“Where are you staying?” he asked.

“Helen’s dorm.”

Helen Reisman, a bright underclassmen.

“Will I see you later?” he asked.

“There is no later,” she smiled. “Just
now.”

I could never admire Helen. She’s not
clever. But this
girl? I’m enamored.

Mick pulled her into his chest. Kissed
her. Strange new flavor. The bravado of now, roused by her, swept over him and
took control.
Enough to show I understand?

She departed into the alien night, her
fingers the last to slip away. Blue eyes under dark brows went, with them the
heat of unified desire.

“Are you sure you want to do this Mick?”
Jason asked.

They were already upon the platform, the
question an obvious formality from an old friend.

“It’s no gamble,” Mick said. He tried to
smile.

Another black hull mission. Who’d have
thought I’d sink to this? Can it make sense somehow, later?

“A Zubenalgubi run is no joke,” Jason
said. “And that ship’s a piece of shit.” He laughed, looking at the black hull
behind them. 

“Well, what can you do?” Mick said,
feigning interest in his friend’s concern.  

He knows why. He’d do the same thing.

“Alright, well,” he said. “I’ll be here,
a little greyer I suppose, but I’ll keep a beer cold for you.”

“Thanks,” Mick said.

He walked into the ship, waved. His
criminal crew was waiting for him.

Karen, Christopher, little Mickey,
Selby. Not one of them to see me off. Better that way.

The image of a splintered skull rent the
thought of family from Mick’s mind as he entered the ship. Red and black, rage,
and a delicate arrangement of interaction had occurred, and so he had to leave
his home world for ten years.

Has it been a year since the funeral?

“Ion propulsion engaged—ready to launch…”
said the captain.

Come to me Lethe of space, oh sweet Cryo
.

“Do you know what I’m going to do to you
if we survive this?” Mick said.

Sera drilled into the floor of the
cruiser, penetrated the hull of the Cozon, and dropped inside.

“Keep your suit tight,” she said, then
disappeared into the ship. The unknown light-class flew in close to the
cruiser.

“Mick, transmission coming in,” XJ said.

Mick ran into the cockpit.

“Put it through,” he replied.

“This is light-class Fogstar—undock your
vessel immediately,” commanded a woman’s voice.

“Sorry—we have a bit of cargo we’ll be
needing first.”

Shots sounded from the Cozon below.

Someone’s been shot. Sera?

“You’ve got my husband aboard that
ship,” crackled the com.

“Sorry—he shouldn’t have stolen our
ship.”

“I’ll fire,” she threatened.

“Kill us all?”

Sera returned with a body on her
shoulder and a bit of plastic in her hand.