Siege Weapons Read online

  They jogged on past, and soon, the sounds of their boots faded into nothing.

  I was trapped. Couldn’t leave. Couldn’t stay. Perhaps it was exactly how he wanted me.

  Chapter Nine

  BACK IN THE room, I couldn’t find Turo, but he’d left a message on my wrist-tech.

  Come and join me on the roof.

  Roof? That sounded cold. I grabbed my gloves and headed out. The elevator only took me up one more floor, but a door wedged open led to a set of spiral steps that showed me the way.

  Out here was even colder, like the nightmares I used to have of my ship ripping open and letting me drift out into space. The spire’s tip of the Capital Hotel wasn’t big, a circular metal platform making gentle noises in the wind.

  I climbed the last of the steps to find Turo leaning over the railing, looking blankly at the scared, sleeping city. I walked over to him, and we stood together in silence. So many targets and nothing the people could really do to protect themselves. Space bombardment didn’t have to be sophisticated. The cheaper types of weapons often broke apart on atmospheric entry, indiscriminately raining down on those below.

  The memory of the first bombing I’d experienced on Teva filled my mind. The warning came when our school class was out in the field. We all ran into an empty water cave in the ground for shelter. Sharp, dead plants stabbed my palms and knees as I crawled. More than thirty frightened children stuffed inside a dark and scary cave, slimy to the touch and dripping from the walls. The whole thing had felt like a game at first. After we got used to it and our eyes adjusted to the darkness, the more adventurous among us explored the nooks and crannies, ignoring the frightened yells of our guardians to come back.

  Then the bombing started, and none of us said another word. The bombs sounded like a crack inside our very eardrums. Seconds later, the rocks surrounding us convulsed with such force that, from a sitting position, I was thrown to the ground. The boom that followed shook us even more and left our ears ringing. We were trapped in that cave for twenty hours, waiting for the next bomb that would hit right on us. Children afraid to die.

  “My home-world was destroyed by a force that started out very much like this one,” I told him, staring out into the night.

  “We’re not going to destroy Jansen,” Turo responded without hesitation.

  “We? Who is we, Turo?” I tried to catch the meaning behind his ice-blue eyes. It wasn’t usually the reaction I got to such a disclosure. He turned away from me, almost embarrassed. I cursed my own naivety for not spending even a second thinking about what he could be hiding.

  “I meant…nothing. Ales, come here. I want to show you something.” He reached out to my shoulder.

  “Get away from me. Turo, tell me the truth. Are you with the Trades Council or the Union?”

  “For infinity’s sake, Ales, it’s the same damn thing.” His hands smacked down on the railing, sending vibrations through the night sky. “Don’t you get it yet? The Trades Council is nothing more than a jumped-up customs office. They’re nothing but useless mediators, arbitrators—a moderate halfway house more interested in regulating the damn price of fuel and lining their own pockets than solving our problems.”

  I kept staring up at the scatter of the stars in the night sky, so different from this vantage point. I’d never seen this kind of configuration before. The rest of the galaxy lay behind the planet. All that lay in front of me, this sky full of stars, still undiscovered, unknown to our kind. I leaned against the railing, holding me back from the galaxy’s edge.

  “The Verge is divided,” he said. “Nothing but a sorry array of second-rate systems swapping spare parts, corporations and smugglers taking advantage of our supposed freedoms. How long do you think these internal contradictions can sustain, Ales? The slightest bit of pressure and everything will collapse. It’ll be world against world. Carnage. Billions will die.”

  I stared at him. Part of me understood what he said. The Trades Council was corrupt beyond repair. The entire system had the unmistakable vestige of decay when no one even remembered how things should have worked. But what might replace it, or what he might want to, frightened me more than anything.

  “But we could be so much more if we only worked together,” he continued as he reached for my shoulder and squeezed it. I let him. “Ales, join us. We’ve got the opportunity here to make something unknown in the history of the galaxy. An alliance of systems focused not on conquest but on exploration.”

  That came as a surprise. I expected a treatise on the need for a strong military power and the need to sacrifice freedoms for our security.

  “Exploration of what, Turo? What is left out there to discover? Every moon, every planet, every asteroid is claimed and owned and fought over by someone. This is the only place, the only one where we, where I, can breathe.” His hand found its way around my shoulder again, and I pushed it away. “You build your empires, Turo. I don’t want any part of it.”

  We stayed silent for a while; watching the lights moving around the sky. Spotlights dropped down every so often, illuminating targets for the bombardment due from sunset tomorrow.

  “Ales, the galinium: it’s not just a weapon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Without using any of the slipstreams, it would take what, fifty, sixty years to travel the thirty kiloparsecs or so from here to the other edge of the galaxy, right?”

  “More like eighty years, using a conventional MAST drive at full capacity. But you can’t travel outside the galactic dark matter structure for very long before it will stop working and you’ll be stranded in extragalactic space, so I still don’t get you.”

  “What if we could make our own slipstreams?”

  I paused at the thought. The slipstreams were the one thing that had enabled sentient beings to colonize the galaxy and made trade and travel possible. The few regions the slipstreams didn’t reach remained uninhabited. I hadn’t learned much about history, but what I’d gathered from the few holo-stories I’d seen was that ancient space flight had given homosapiens the ability to colonize only a few local systems, but not reach much farther.

  Only after the first encounter with a heterosapien species, millennia ago, did the revolution in space technology happen. The mixing of two entirely different systems of thought and science blossomed into discovery. Not only finding and navigating the slipstreams but the ability to terraform harsh terrains, mine unknown resources, and discover new sources of energy, which enabled the massive expansion of homo- and heterokind across the stars.

  “The galinium, after it’s weaponized and using precisely the right amount, could, in theory, direct the flow of dark energy to wherever we wanted. Can you imagine what we could do? Where we could go?”

  “Beyond the galaxy?” I asked.

  Turo nodded, and I stared into the beyond, with a renewed sense of wonder. A memory from long ago surfaced.

  IT WAS MY tenth birthday, the last one before the invasion started. My father had taken me on my first visit to the Holy Mountain of Souls, as our religion required of children that age. That mountain was the highest point in our entire system, jutting from the planet almost into space and giving our world a lopsided orbit so the night was shorter than the day. It was the resting place of the souls of our departed ancestors, and we could go there to communicate with them any time we needed advice.

  We hiked all afternoon and evening, my father intermittently carrying me on his back. Finally, through the cloud cover and into the thin cold air of night, we reached the plateau where the curvature of the planet could be seen.

  “No, Son, look up.”

  I’d never seen space in all its fabulous glory. The night sky blazed with the light of a billion suns, no longer hazy from the atmosphere. A thick streak of brilliant white cut right over us—the central belt of stars, like a sparkling galactic rainbow.

  “That’s the center of our galaxy, where we live. To this side are the empires of Kyleri, Shakti, and Thranga, and
to the other side are the worlds of the Ingvar, the Crejan, and the heterosapian systems. And all the way over there, thousands of parsecs away, is the Outer Verge.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a place without governments, without rules, without wars. They are strong people, living in frontier worlds. Mining the hardest substances and striking a tough bargain. They are fierce traders, son. They will try to talk you out of everything you have, but they value their independence and right to trade as fiercely as their freedom.”

  “Did you ever go there, Dad?”

  “Once, Son, only once. To the very edge, the very last planet in the galaxy. A man there showed me the most incredible metals and jewels, ones that came from another galaxy altogether.”

  “Wow. Do you think we’ll ever go there, Dad? To another galaxy?”

  “Maybe, Son, maybe one day. If you work hard and stay true, maybe you’ll be the captain that takes us there.”

  TURO WANTED TO go to sleep, but I wasn’t tired. I told him to use my room, and I’d be back later. With my jacket and gloves on this time, I left the hotel, alone and with nowhere to go.

  The night was a freezing shimmer waiting for dawn to crack, punctured by breezy gusts of fearful apprehension. I wanted to feel the ground beneath my feet. To know it was still real. To know I was too.

  I’d been alone for days on new worlds before, waiting for a shipment of goods or to meet a contact arranged by Javer. Finding sex usually occupied those days and nights. I was sure that even Jansen, had it not been under siege, would’ve had something to offer.

  I turned away from the hotel, down a side street even more dark and deserted than the empty main thoroughfare. These buildings looked like they’d been boarded up for a lot longer than since the start of the siege. While the main avenue where the Capital Hotel sat was at least clean, layers of old and dirty snow crunched under my feet here. I didn’t know where I would go, but at least I knew the shimmering blue of the tower would point the way home or to destruction, whichever came first.

  A nervous lump raised in my throat as the searchlights from the ships far above strafed the atmosphere. Knowing Turo was connected to it all turned that lump into a rock. Everything he’d said twisted through my mind. The galinium, the thought of travel to a new galaxy. Was it even true? Boren’s voice was added in there too. Complaining about the corruption of the Trades Council. The heavy-handed tactics of the Union. Running away from his own world. Fucking Franx.

  I realized then it wasn’t jealousy I felt for their relationship but pity. Franx had settled down. The adventurous side of him replaced by this person who liked fancy dinners and threesomes with his boyfriend. Their life was so decadent, so Targulian. Boren was no better. He knew the problems in the Verge but chose to accept them. That was the difference; Turo understood the solutions. At least, he claimed to.

  “Hey. Hey, you.”

  I jumped at the sound of a voice. I didn’t know from where. I scanned the dark street and whipped to look behind me. Nothing.

  “Psst. Hey, man, up here.”

  My gaze darted upward to a young woman sitting on the window ledge one floor above the street, dangling her legs out and smoking in the darkness. Her yellow hair mostly hidden under a furry hood.

  “Hi,” I offered, taking a few steps away and getting ready to run.

  “You’re not from here, right?” the young woman asked. I thought for a moment how she might know that, before realizing the natives of Jansen were all light-skinned.

  “No, I’m not. But I’m not here to cause any trouble.” I kept backing away, calculating how far the jump was for her. It would take at least a second to get her footing in the snow, maybe a second and a half. If I could dart down another side street, maybe I could escape.

  “It’s all right, man. I couldn’t care less if you worked for them guys there in the sky.” She kept smiling at me. The light from whatever she smoked illuminated her face as she brought it to her lips for a drag. She seemed young, less than twenty, with a thin frame mostly hidden under the thick coat. Her grungy face pockmarked with a few teenage scars. “Yup,” she continued, staring at a searchlight poking down from space. “Shit’s about to get fucked up.” She took another drag.

  The woman was high, but a nice high, not a Kri one. Perhaps it was a local plant, although what could grow in this frosty wasteland, I didn’t know.

  “Hey, man, you wanna join me? There’s a ladder over there you can climb up.” She pointed to the side of the building and icy wooden planks bound with frosty string. It led to a ledge that ran around the side of the building. “Plus I got plenty of this stuff to smoke. If I’m gonna die tomorrow, no point in keeping any for later.”

  Good point.

  “Okay.” I glanced around at the Capital Hotel not very far away. Although I laughed at myself, thinking I’d be safe there. That was the problem with luxury. It created an unearned sense of security.

  I climbed the few steps of the ladder and shuffled along the edge of the building. My new friend shuffled to give me room and I joined her on the ledge. She leaned against half-disintegrated wooden boards, which were in place of a window, but I could only see darkness inside.

  “What’s in there?” I asked, reluctant to expose my back to such a gap when I didn’t know what might be on the other side.

  “No idea.” She passed me the smoker. Dried, crumbled plant wrapped inside thin paper. Very rustic. Carefully, I took it from her. “This part of town’s been shut down for years. Nothing’s here now.”

  I brought the end of it to my lips, slightly damp from her saliva, and took a long, deep draw. Instantly, a flood of relaxation coursed through every part of my body. Like I was floating in a pool of perfumed water on a paradise island with a thousand hands massaging every part of my skin. My shoulders searched for something to slump against, and I nearly fell through the hole in the board. But I shuffled a little closer to my new friend and the promise of heat from her body. I took another draw.

  “This stuff’s good,” I ventured.

  “Yeah, man.” She grinned. “I sell a bag of this shit for half a clam.”

  “That’s a lot?” I asked.

  She smacked her hand across her thigh and laughed. “Shit, how long you been on Jansen for?”

  “I don’t know, like half a day?” I said the words then giggled at the ridiculousness of it all. Before I knew it, we were both overcome with riotous, uncontrollable laughter. We even held onto each other to stop from falling from the ledge, which made things seem even funnier.

  “Aw, shit. Well, you sure picked the wrong time to visit.”

  “Why? Did I miss the summer season?”

  “Nah, there’s only two seasons here. Cold and fucking colder.”

  We continued passing the paper smoker between us. Nothing was as good as the first hit, but my mind grew quieter and I could sense more…clarity almost. Understanding even, about the universe.

  “What’s it like living here?”

  She studied me for a moment with a quizzical stare. Like I’d asked why the air was so cold. “Pretty boring and pretty shit. Probably like everywhere else.”

  “You can’t leave?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “If I get caught selling this stuff, I could be exiled to a mining colony or one of the moons.”

  “Hey, so, could be worse.”

  “Yeah, things could always be worse.” She was wistful, beautiful even in the darkness. “It’s kinda funny. For like thousands of years, the Faith tells us all ‘the apocalypse is coming, the apocalypse is coming’ and controls our fucking lives because of it, you know? Then when the apocalypse does come, they say ‘fight, fight, it’s not the right apocalypse!’” She laughed to herself, but one full of sadness. “Such a fucking mess.”

  “That’s what Svandor says?”

  “Shh, man, don’t say her name out loud like that. People get fed to the bears for disrespecting the high priest.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”<
br />
  “Let me tell you a little story about living on this world.” She took a deep, satisfying draw, nearly finishing the thing. “My buddy at school, Jally. He was my best friend, right? We went everywhere together. See those mountains around the city? Up there, man. All day, we’d be walking and laughing and stuff. At school, they used to take us out to a frozen lake in the hills. We played this game, right? This fucking fantastic game.” She sucked on the remaining nib of the paper, holding it in her mouth while her gloved hands described the scene.

  “One team’s on this side of the ice. The other’s over here. We’ve got three strips of cloth, right, and they’ve got three strips. And you gotta collect five and take them to your base. But you can hide them anywhere. Around the edges of the lake or in your pocket or whatever. But if I tackle you—” She moved into me, both hands grabbing my jacket. “—and get you down onto the ice, you gotta give up your flag. Man, we would play it for hours, running and sliding across the ice.” Her whole face lit up, but a tear started to poke through her eye.

  “Then Jally, man, he grabbed this other kid and said ‘give me you flag, give me it.’ But the other kid was like ‘I don’t have it,’ and Jally kept saying ‘I saw you. I saw you. Give me the flag.’ And then one of the teachers, well, you know, priests, comes over onto the ice, holding his fucking cloak up. Pissed as anything that he had to come all the way out to the lake. And Jally is still screaming and screaming. He’s bright red, screaming so much he didn’t even notice the priest coming up. And I’m standing right there, watching all this, like everyone else. Jally’s doing his best not to punch the poor kid, but he gets right in his face, there on the ice, and Jally screams at him ‘You stink like Svandor’s cunt.’”

  She threw the nub right onto the snow, pulled another one already rolled, lit it, and passed it to me. “I mean what even is that? Some shit kids say. But the priest, he heard him. We all did. Without even hesitating, he goes behind Jally, grabs him by the hair, and drags him—drags him across the ice. Jally’s crying. The hardest kid in school has tears streaming down his face. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ he’s saying. The priest doesn’t listen, but keeps dragging him all the way to the edge of the lake, back to the snow. He can’t even get on his feet, he’s crying so much, saying sorry all the time. And we’re all standing there watching, frozen on the ice. The priest takes his knife out, pulls Jally’s head back by his hair. He won’t stop screaming, screaming, and then whoosh, slices his throat, just like that. No more screaming, only a patch of red blood on the snow.”