The Burning Dark (7 page)

There was a pause before the provost marshal responded. He must have been holding the comms link open with his thumb, because Serra could hear a rushing sound in the background for a second before he spoke.

“Okay, back in. We’ll just have to keep monitoring.”

“Roger that, sir.”

The comms beeped and went dead. Carter grabbed his spinning part and grabbed on to the door of the service panel to pull himself back toward the hull.

“Cycle the power back off, lemme get this piece of shit back together.”

Serra nodded, and then realized Carter couldn’t see it behind her mirrored visor. She acknowledged over the comm and flipped the lever back to the off position. She gave a thumbs-up, and Carter got back to work.

Serra closed her eyes and said, “Do you think there’s anything out there?”

Carter grunted as he worked, but after a few seconds she heard his considered reply. “There’s always something out there.”

When Serra opened her eyes, the metal wall in front of her still had the alien violet hue. She could
feel
the star behind her, and … something else. A presence, something real, something alive right at her shoulder. It was impossible, they were alone, but—

“But the Shadow system is uninhabited, if that’s what you’re talking about,” said Carter, the sudden appearance of his voice in her ear making Serra jump. “No planets. Nothing but slowrocks and dust. Not exactly the kind of light you can grow plant protein under, right?”

Serra laughed.

Carter reappeared from behind the service panel. “Tell you what, though, those slowrocks are probably worth a bit. I heard the marshal a couple of cycles back. High yield of lucanol. Said something about someone coming out to take a look soon.”

“Uh-huh,” said Serra with total disinterest. If someone wanted to come out this far to look at some asteroids, then they were welcome to them. But there was something else in the Shadow system, she
knew
. Something watching, waiting for … something.

Carmina Serra blinked behind her visor, then turned her head back around to the left. The hull slid away, the purple of space reappeared, the glow of Shadow at the edge, her HUD red.

4:31

4:30

4:29

3

Ida lay on his
bed. The lights were off and the room was dark but too cold and not particularly conducive to sleep. Even here, just on the edge of the occupied deck of living quarters, the station’s systems were struggling. But at least he was left alone—there was nothing much beyond his cabin that hadn’t already been sliced by drones and packed away, and the only person who bothered coming along to his end of the deck was Izanami, which suited him just fine.

But the environment was dodgy all over the station, with wild temperature fluctuations and deviations in the standard air pressure. A side effect of the deconstruction process. Ida had heard a crew went on an EVA to try to rig a fix, but so far they didn’t seem to be having much success.

Not that he really
could
sleep. Ida was furious, but he’d pushed the feeling away and gotten on with his work, even though the remaining crew were not shy about their annoyance at his interruptions. Now, in the small hours, on his own, that ball of anger had changed into something colder, bitter.

He sat up and quickly swept off the covers, then slipped the top blanket off the bed and wrapped it tightly around his shoulders as he stood. Damn, it was cold, the temperature dropping even since he’d left the warmth of his bed. His breath didn’t quite steam as it left his mouth, but the metal floor was ice on his bare feet.

He turned and hopped to the environment controls near the door, set the heating on full power, and then kicked his boots from where they lay against the wall into the upright position and slid into them. He hobbled to his work desk, boot tongues flapping against his shins. Sitting and securing the blanket around himself, he pulled one of the computer screens toward him on its articulated arm. He checked the clock in the top center of the home screen. It was three in the morning.

The
Coast City,
like every other U-Star in the Fleet, no matter if they were ships or stations or something in between, and no matter how far from home they were, was synched to a daily cycle that matched the rotation of the Earth, specifically to a cycle that matched the day and time at Fleet Command in the former state of Utah. Three in the morning there was three in the morning in space, no matter where you were hiding or the light of which star was shining on you. It didn’t matter. War was a round-the-clock operation anyway.

He started poking at the display. Proving his involvement in the action at Tau Retore would be easy enough. All he had to do was access Fleet records and call it all up. Even jarheads like DeJohn and Carter wouldn’t be able to deny one of the greatest—not to say
rarest
—heroic actions in Fleet history.

“E.T., phone home,” he said, tapping the communications browser. The screen filled with the spinning insignia of the Fleet—rendered as a particularly nasty and old-fashioned three-dimensional model in scratchy blue—before resolving into a black empty square. Ida saw himself in a smaller window in the top left, and laughed. What the hell did he look like?

“Name, rank, and serial number,” asked a voice from behind the black window. Ida gave his details, and an icon at the bottom of the screen flicked to green as the video link switched suddenly on. Facing him was an operator at Fleet Command, his chin the only visible feature of the man’s face underneath a large, almost comical communications headset. Every minute movement of the operator’s head made the insectlike eyes of his headset wiggle and catch the light on its myriad surfaces. Crew who worked as operators—the definition included nearly everything that was vaguely technical or skilled, whether it be communications, logistics, or even pilots—had two nicknames. The official one was Ops. The unofficial one, but the one much more widely used, was Flyeye.

“Ah, hi there,” said Ida, pulling the blanket tighter but sitting up a little straighter in his chair. He didn’t want anyone to think that a Fleet Captain—even a former one—was a slouch. “Put me through to Archives, please.”

“Connecting you now,” said the Flyeye; the video flickered with white lines before going black again. Huh. The interference from Shadow was getting worse, crossing over into the supposedly impervious lightspeed link channel. Sunspot activity or some such, no doubt. Ida made a note to check on the readings from the solar observatory again.

Ida waited, and waited. He peered at the tiny view of himself in the top corner. He frowned, and rubbed his face, and tried to flatten his bed hair. With the room heating up, he was beginning to feel drowsy. He shuffled, trying to get comfortable, and then was distracted by one corner of the blanket that had gotten caught under his chair. The room was dark, lit only by the glare of the computer screen and the few small lights on equipment scattered around the room.

Ida sighed and tugged at the corner of the blanket. He leaned down and freed the thick fabric from under the wheel, then sat back up and looked into the screen as he readjusted the blanket around his shoulders. He blinked and peered into the dark, reflective window where he expected a Flyeye from Archives to appear any second. He blinked again and his breath caught in his throat.

There was someone standing behind him.

Another blink, and it was gone, although there was a blur of movement on the screen that might just have been his eyelashes sweeping up and down. Ida felt his heart kick for a beat or two, and spun the chair around on its swivel.

Nothing. He wasn’t sure who had been assigned to the room originally—it was large, clearly designed for an officer, maybe one with a higher rank than Ida’s own. The cabin’s door was on his left. On his right was the bed, which reached to just over halfway into the circular chamber. There was a low bedside cupboard on the side of the bed closest, stacking high with personal belongings not yet tidied away. On the other side of cabin were a couple of tall lockers, still empty, waiting to be co-opted into use. There was nothing else in the room, no place for anyone to hide unless they were on the floor on the opposite side of the bed or had squeezed themselves into one of the lockers.

Ridiculous. But Ida got up and checked anyway. There was nobody beside the bed. The cupboards were empty, and, besides, the doors were stiff and impossible to open without a harsh metal-on-metal scraping amplified by the quiet of the night-cycle. The main door was closed, and on the bulkhead control panel beside it the indicator glowed a pale red,
locked,
next to the environment control sliders. Nobody had come in or out.

Ida stood and flapped toward the panel, then stopped after a few steps, unhappy about the sound his unlaced boots were making. He had the sudden urge to be very, very quiet, and with the room warmed up, he shucked them off. Barefoot, he crossed the rest of the floor to the room controls, double-checked the lock—as though the red LED could give a false reading of security—and tapped the environment down a couple degrees.

When he turned back to the table and chair and faced the rest of the room, he found himself doing it with some trepidation. He was a career military man, and he didn’t like being spooked—mainly because he never was. But he was tired and worried, and he knew sleep deprivation, no matter how mild, could amplify anxiety about the smallest things. He felt a surge of anger. The fucking space apes who inhabited this godforsaken space station were getting to him.

The video link flared into life again. Ida scooted to the chair and sat down again, blanket now abandoned.

“Archives,” said the Flyeye, this time female. “What is your request, please?”

The video link rolled, for just the blink of an eye, and when it restabilized, it took a second or two for the white lines of interference to vanish. Ida ignored it.

“Reference Fleet action 2961, May to September. Sortie of the First Fleet Arrowhead to Tau Retore. List of commendations and awards, please.”

“Thank you,” said his new Flyeye. “One moment, please.”

Ida tapped the mute and pushed the screen back on its arm to give him some room as he leaned forward on the desk. Head in hands, he massaged his cheeks, trying to wake himself up. He wondered if he should go down to the canteen to get some coffee. He quickly decided against it.

The Flyeye’s head tilted. “Tau Retore System, 2961, sir?”

“Yes, Operator,” said Ida before realizing he was still muted. He tapped the screen and repeated for the Flyeye.

“No commendation list available. The last Fleet action for the Tau Retore system is … December 2960.”

Ida felt an adrenalized pang in his chest, enough to snap him to full wakefulness.

“Can you confirm, Operator? Tau Retore, 2961.”

The operator paused only a moment, her multifaceted goggles bobbing as she inclined her head again to read the data off a display out of sight of the camera. When she spoke again, she was shaking her head.

“Sorry, sir. Do you have the correct reference? 2960 is the last action. I have the authenticated order command on file.”

“Okay,” said Ida. He rubbed his chin again, and then pulled his hand away. It was shaking. He slapped it down on the desk and hoped the operator didn’t notice.

“Can you pull sortie sheets for Fleet ships?”

“Yes, sir. Nameplate and date?”

“U-Star
Boston Brand
. May 2961. No, wait … make that September 2961. Should be a log of repairs out in one of the dockyards. She took quite a battering. Warpcore was burnt clean out.”

Ida tapped his fingers on the desk while the operator a thousand light-years away searched the servers of Fleet Command. He smiled to himself. Yep, the warpcore burned clean out because he had a bright idea that ripped the solar heart right out of a Mother Spider.

(Burning as if it were a lamp and then they died one and all and)

Ida coughed.

The search took longer than it should have, long enough for Ida to find his socks and pull them on. He felt a dull ache creep up his chest with every passing moment.

Something was up.

“U-Star Kappa Alpha Omega Omega.
Boston Brand
. Listed as out of service, January through November 2961.”

Ida felt dizzy. “The hell?”

“That’s what it says here, sir.”

“Reason?” Ida snapped, causing the operator on the video link to jerk back at her console. Another pause. Ida could just see the top of the op’s hands as she typed.

“Q-Gen coil failure. Replacement of the whole coil assembly. Any further information requires engineering classification, sir.”

Ida swore, just remembering to hit the mute as he did so. The Q-Gen coil was the part of a U-Star’s engine—a tiny component compared with the rest of the thing, but a vital one—that tore a hole in the universe and let the ship push into quickspace. He knew exactly how it worked—all U-Star commanders had to know the mechanics of quickspace and the technology that allowed them to abuse it. He knew that the Q-Gen coil had nothing whatsoever to do with the warpcore, the central component of the main engines that did the actual business of moving the ship past lightspeed. He also knew that such repair work was exceptionally rare and, as indicated by the operator, took nearly a year to complete.

The mute came off again.

“Q-Gen coil failure? The Q-Gen coil was fine. The warpcore needed replacing because I was the one who burnt it out. We pushed quickspace without engine warming!”

The operator said nothing. Then she licked her lips. To Ida she looked less like a fly and more like a praying mantis considering its next meal.

“I don’t have any more information, sir.”

Ida felt like reprimanding the operator, but he knew she was just reading what the terminal showed her.

“What about the U-Star
Stars
and the U-Star
Stripes
? And the
Carcosa.
” He clicked his fingers. “Yes, the
Carcosa.
Gotta be a big report on that one. Same system and flight time.”