But The Stars Read online

  “No, I can’t,” she replies, leaning forward and grabbing at her knees to steady herself. She breathes deeply, trying not to vomit.

  “Listen,” Coe-Voy says, turning to her and clearly feeling pressed for time. “All we knew was they were protecting high-value prisoners in here, but we didn’t know who. If you’re who you say you are, if you’re really from the Acheron, you may hold the key to unraveling all this. The Acheron was the first craft they hit.”

  Dante nods as tears roll down her cheeks. She feels as though she’s being scolded, as though she’s done something wrong.

  “They fuck with your mind,” he says, tapping the side of his helmet. “You know that, right? You understand?”

  Again, she nods, trying to be brave but feeling horribly exposed.

  Coe-Voy points at her head.

  “If they get inside, it’s all over.”

  He peers around the corner, taking her arm and preparing to run across the aisle. Something about her reluctance has him pause.

  “How?” she asks.

  Turning back to her, he says, “They use electromagnetic resonance to distort reality, but it requires sub-millimeter precision. Staying on the move is our best option. Their illusions are like a lure to a fish. Get to close and wham.

  “If they can reinforce their control with direct contact, altering the brain’s biochemistry with a variety of toxins and carefully synthesized drugs, the illusion is inescapable.”

  He points at the fallen crew. Unlike him, they’re in uniform rather than a spacesuit.

  “They build a false narrative. These poor bastards thought they were fighting aliens. They thought we were the bad guys.”

  He shakes his head.

  “Make no mistake. The crew of this ship will kill us in a heartbeat. They can’t see us. They don’t. They see something else.”

  Her lips quiver as she struggles to articulate what she’s thinking.

  “But me?”

  “You’re compromised. Don’t trust anyone.”

  “I trust you,” she says.

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “How do you know?” Dante asks. “How can you be sure you’re not like them? How do you know you’re not seeing a fabrication?”

  “No contaminates,” he says, tapping his helmet. “Limits what they can do. Means any illusions are more like a dream. I’m running an encrypted disruptor, constantly changing channels, keeping me clean.”

  “But they could have fabricated your suit,” she says. “I mean, all of this could be some extended illusion.”

  “It could,” he agrees, turning his head slightly and gesturing down the corridor toward the three bodies cooling on the floor. “Only you don’t die in an illusion.”

  Dante isn’t convinced, but the time for debate has passed. Coe-Voy grabs her again, getting a firm grip on the side of her rib cage as he leads her away.

  “Heading to navigation,” he says under his breath.

  “What about me?” she asks with her head down, seeing little beyond her own naked body and the skin hanging from her distended stomach as her bare feet pace across the deck. “I’m not protected. How is this not an illusion for me?”

  Coe-Voy stops by a set of stairs leading down into a lower corridor.

  “They think you’re still in one of those tanks. But, hey, if you want to sit here and wait for them, be my guest. I ain’t got time to argue. I’m getting the hell off this deathtrap.”

  There’s yelling from behind them. Soldiers rush into the rear of the armory. Coe-Voy punches something into a wrist pad computer, setting off a series of explosions Dante never saw him place.

  Shrapnel ricochets around the deck, tearing at soft flesh. In the lull that follows the compression wave rocking her body, Dante hears the low groan of men in pain. As a physician, her instinct is to rush to help. Coe-Voy must feel what little muscle she has flex as he pushes her on, saying, “Move!”

  Dante picks her way down the stairs. The skin beneath her soles is soft. The steel grating hurts her tender feet, causing her to grimace with each step. Coe-Voy grabs her, raising her off the stairs as he runs down toward someone else wearing a similar spacesuit. Beside him there’s an elderly bald man with deep-set eyes. His back is hunched. Skin sags from his feeble arms. Like her, he’s naked. Mucus still covers his legs, while organic tubes hang from his back, disconnected from whatever kept him alive all these years.

  “Naz?”

  “Angel?” he asks, looking at her with what appear to be cataracts covering his pupils.

  “Dante,” she replies, reaching out with her one good hand and taking hold of his shoulder. “It’s me. Dee.”

  “Dee?” he replies, somewhat absentmindedly, as though he were recalling a fond memory rather than scrambling to escape from an infested warship. Slowly, a smile comes to his lips as the others talk among themselves. “Dee. I remember you. You were the doctor, right? I haven’t seen you for—for years.”

  “Come on, old guy,” the soldier says, helping him into an escape pod docked on the side of the craft.

  “I remember her,” he says, pointing a frail, spindly finger as the soldier leads him into the pod. “She was on my ship.”

  “Of course she was,” he says.

  “She was nice,” Naz says, waving to her as though he were trying to get her attention in a crowd. “Hello, Dee.”

  Dante’s unsure how to respond. Her Naz was young and vibrant, sharp and alert, musclebound with dark curly hair. The man before her is but the shell of his former self, only that transformation appears to have happened in an instant from her perspective. One moment, they were in the illusion, the next they were here. Only that next moment seems to have been years, decades, perhaps even centuries later.

  “Ah,” she says, lifting her hand in a friendly gesture but not quite bringing herself to wave.

  “Arrows,” Naz says as the soldier straps him into a seat. Naz points back and forth with one hand. “They go this way. They go that way, but which is longer?”

  “Arrows?” she mumbles, unable to process that fleeting memory.

  As the soldier exits the escape pod, Coe-Voy says, “Once we have you—”

  Dante blinks.

  Ordinarily, that’s a physiological process she wouldn’t notice, only this time everything changes and she’s left facing a wall of darkness.

  Air rushes from her lungs, escaping like a ghost. The deafening silence is as confusing as the missing escape pod. It was right there, barely ten feet in front of her, but it’s gone.

  A dismembered arm floats by, leaking blood in a stream of tiny red globules that trail behind it like miniature planets. The arm turns slowly, tumbling through space. Gloved fingers spasm, trying to grab the darkness, reacting to the loss of an entire body in an instant. Lights flicker from the wrist-pad hologram. It seems the suit’s electronics are dying at a rate slower than its master.

  Dante goes to speak, but she can’t draw breath. It takes her a moment to realize she’s floating adrift from the dreadnought. Her eyes feel insanely dry. Blinking doesn’t help. Bubbles form on her lips. Water dances on her tongue, seething and evaporating without any sense of heat at all. Her arms and stomach are suddenly swollen and distended. She’s undergone decompression before so she understands the ache of trapped gasses expanding within her body, but she’s never been in a complete vacuum. Back during training, it was the failure of a high altitude test chamber, but pressure was quickly restored by quick-thinking techs. Not so here in deep space.

  The hull of the dreadnought has been torn open, gutting the structure of the craft and exposing several floors within the ship. The explosion appears to have been above them, only the side of the craft was torn open like a can of beans, flinging her into space without making a sound. Already, as she slowly spins, Dante can feel her body shutting down. Her lungs scream for oxygen. She wishes she could see the stars one last time, but the lights on the hull of the craft deny her even that. Strobes flash. Spotlights flicke
r, probably in a vain attempt to spot survivors.

  Like the Acheron, the massive dreadnought rotates to simulate gravity. It continues to turn as she flies out into the depths of space but as she’s now free from that constraint, she feels weightless, moving off in a straight line. She’s free one last time. The damaged side of the craft moves out of sight. Portholes reveal lights within the war craft, shining like stars, offering her at least some alternative as she dies.

  Dante is struck in the back by something hard, moving fast. Rather than bouncing off her, someone grabs her. A hand reaches around her chest, turning her over.

  Coe-Voy puts a mask over her face, tightening straps on either side of her head, but it’s pointless. Even if he was only going to pressurize the mask to a mere 5 PSI the seal wouldn’t hold and, besides, it’s her entire body that’s depressurized. Nitrogen and oxygen are already coming out of suspension within her veins and arteries, forming gas bubbles that will trigger a painful cardiac arrest on reaching her heart. Oh, how she’s looking forward to that. Damn it, Dante. Shut down your goddamn brain. Spare yourself the pain.

  Those thoughts race through her mind as it desperately tries to find a solution where there is none. Seems acceptance of death isn’t an option she can will herself to embrace.

  Dante’s body falls limp, neither fighting nor helping Coe-Voy as she tries to accept her fate. The light grows faint. Dante understands. The ambient light around her isn’t actually changing at all, it’s simply that she’s losing consciousness. Once again, she welcomes the darkness, only this time, it’s not a reboot. This time it’s the last thing she’ll ever experience.

  With the mask fitted, Coe-Voy slaps a lump of goo in the center of her chest, pressing it firmly between her breasts. Immediately, the glue-like substance expands, inflating in a cascading series of bubbles. Whatever chemical reaction’s unfolding, it’s exothermic, burning her chest.

  The pain is blinding. Dante can feel the searing heat radiating through her sternum as the seething, bubbling concoction expands rapidly, enveloping her upper torso, climbing over the mask covering her eyes, nose and mouth and spreading around her skull. The foam crushes her, expanding and enfolding itself around her body, encasing her in what quickly coagulates into a solid form. Thousands of bubbles harden into what feels like a thick, gooey resin. The foam presses against her back, burning her skin. Within seconds, it’s spreading down her legs, cocooning her, but she can breathe. Oxygen floods her lungs, flowing from the mask. It’s difficult to breathe against the stiff foam wrapped around her chest, but she draws in deep, sucking in a lung full of air, surprised by how grateful she feels at this reprieve.

  The foam is thick but semi-translucent, allowing her to distinguish between light and dark. Gloved fingers tear away sections of the solidified foam from in front of her mask and she sees Coe-Voy floating before her. He gives her a thumbs up, not that she can respond in anyway as her body is locked in place.

  Dante blinks several times, signaling the only way she can. Coe-Voy grins and nods, shifting hands as he turns. The back of his suit has a soft neon blue glow, apparently being some kind of propulsive jetpack. To either side of her, there are flashes of light visible through the diffuse foam. A battle is unfolding around her.

  After the initial rush of adrenaline, the pain returns, but there’s nothing she can do about the aches and burns wracking her body. Her right leg cramps, but the solidified foam has a little give. If she pushes hard, she can flex slightly, just enough to relieve the muscle.

  Over time, the foam around her softens and she finds she can flex her legs and breathe easier, which helps with the sense of claustrophobia. Dante’s not sure how the face mask works as she’s inhaling and exhaling without so much as a gas exchanger, CO2 scrubber or an oxygen cylinder. She wonders what the capacity of her mask is, but for now, the air is fresh. From what she can tell, she’s been encased in a chemical cocoon roughly twenty feet in diameter. It’s asymmetrical and feels thicker on her right side and back.

  Seconds turn into minutes and then slowly, painfully, into hours. Occasionally, she catches a glimpse of Coe-Voy or some other astronaut moving around, but no one pays her any attention inside her artificial asteroid.

  As Dante’s wearing a mask, she can speak but apparently these life support devices don’t include a radio so she talks to herself. For Dante, it’s a strategy to help her deal with the stress.

  “All good down here,” she says as Coe-Voy’s suited butt cheek bumps up against her chemically-induced asteroid. “That’s a moon, by the way. At least, that’s the term we had for it back on Earth.”

  Coe-Voy ignores her. Of course he does. Not deliberately. He’s busy doing space things, apparently. Whenever she loses sight of him panic seizes her, but then he works himself around and she sees his gloved hand holding onto the opening in the foam bubble protecting her. At one point, he flies directly away from her and her heart races as she sees his legs flicker past, but he returns a few minutes later, dragging another foam boulder over to join her. She has no idea who’s encased in the other artificial asteroid, but it’s encouraging to realize at least one other person from the Acheron is still alive.

  “Do we get an in-flight movie?” she asks the empty void of space. “I guess a granola bar and a Coke is asking too much.”

  The sporadic flashes of light from the battle give her both a sense of orientation and distance, allowing her to focus on something other than being buried alive within a violent chemical reaction.

  Dante calculates her rate of spin at one revolution every three minutes, which, she tells herself, is leisurely, almost lazy. As the flashes slowly fade, she realizes she’s drifting away from the conflict, which is another positive, helping her remain calm.

  As the hours pass, Coe-Voy spends less time with her, but she’s confident she hasn’t been abandoned, just that he’s busy doing whatever it is medics in the special forces do in the 26th century. He’s sure to buzz by and give her the odd thumbs up, checking in on her from time to time.

  “Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” she mutters as a brilliant, tight cluster of stars pass in front of her narrow view of the universe. The stars don’t actually twinkle, though. The atmosphere in her face mask is far too thin for any haze, but she goes with it, reciting the whole nursery rhyme and wondering if Angel’s doing something similar, perhaps passing time the same way she did on the treadmill during selection.

  “Oh,” she says, feeling a warm wet patch by her crotch. “I think I pulled a Shepard.”

  Dante laughs at herself, although she feels a little unsettled about not feeling any pressure on her bladder before urine soaked her leg, squishing in between the foam and her skin.

  “I hope you guys accounted for this,” she says to no one in particular. “I mean, this foam stuff isn’t susceptible to uric acid or ammonia, is it?”

  There’s no reply.

  “I guess I’ll find out.”

  As the flickering of the battle not only fades but reduces in frequency, occurring only sporadically, she calls out, “Hey! Who won?”

  By now, Dante hasn’t seen Coe-Voy in over an hour and she hopes that’s not ominous. It’s easy to hyperventilate within the mask, entombed in foam, barely able to flex let alone move. It takes a concerted effort to remain calm. She’s alive. For now, that’s enough. As for who won, that’s a dangerous question. Either way, she’ll be told humanity won. With each reboot, the aliens increase their ability to replicate reality. Now she wonders if she’ll even notice.

  Suddenly, her world is turned white. A blinding light pierces the muddy browns encasing her. She feels something grab her tiny asteroid, arresting its tumbling motion. A sense of acceleration takes her. As it’s slightly off center and applied at an angle, it feels as though she’s being dragged along upside down. To her, it’s a though she’s being swung over the edge of a cliff.

  “Hey,” she calls out. “Read the delivery instructions, will yah. Fragile! Handle with care.”
r />   A slight tremor reverberates through the thick foam. She can see blurs at work, several people moving around, attaching things to the surface of her personal world, perhaps drilling anchor points.

  “Coe-Voy?”

  Maybe he can hear her. Perhaps she can transmit but can’t receive, with the mask covering her mouth but not her ears.

  “I’m really hoping that’s you.”

  A sense of weight returns. She’s onboard a ship of some sort, being rolled across a hangar deck. Glimpses of the craft come in and out of focus through her narrow viewport. Cranes. Engines. Smaller vessels similar to the Acheron’s lander.

  Boots come in and out of view as people walk past attending to something other than her and her ball of solidified goo. Everything’s on a scale much larger than the Acheron.

  Her personal bouncy castle/asteroid comes to a rest with her head facing down at the non-slip tread lining the deck. Tiny hexagonal screws mark an access port on the floor. As she has nothing else to focus on, she stares at them, examining the styling, distracting herself, trying to keep her madly beating heart at bay.

  Blowtorches light up. Dante remembers the sound from her childhood, the ‘whomp’ of oxygen and acetylene igniting, the sound of air rushing, the acrid smell. She can imagine the heat. If she strains with her eyes, pushing them to the edge of her vision, she can see the flame cutting through the husk of her chemical tomb.

  Once the outer shell is breached, mechanical claws begin tearing at the softer inner core. As they near her arms, she can feel the pressure easing and the foam expanding. The final few inches are cleared by hand, with mechanics tearing the foam away from her arms and legs, working in toward her torso.

  Coe-Voy’s there but he’s busy with one of the other survivors. Her heart skips. Mac. It’s Mac. Coe-Voy helps him onto a stretcher, reassuring him he’s going to be okay as several medics take him away on a gurney. Once the front half of the foam encasing her body has been peeled away, a medic releases her face mask, working it up over her head.

  “Hey, easy,” Coe-Voy says, holding his hand out and gesturing for her to stay put as they free her legs.