The Burning Dark (2 page)

Of course, I’m standing there watching the other Spider babies getting too close and I’m as angry and scared as the rest of them, but nobody knows that. I signal my pilot and then hit the comms, ordering the arrowhead to break up. So long as everyone stays the hell out of one another’s way and shoots at the right thing, hunting season is officially open. The Spiders are going straight to whatever hell their creepy insect intelligence believes in.

I can see the arrowhead split on the screens to the left and right. About a dozen ships on each flank peel upward and apart like an aerobatic display, and a few seconds later the same screens are filled with flashes and sparks and flames as the Spider babies are put into the grinder. I let myself smile, just a little, because I know that everyone on the bridge isn’t watching the fireworks outside, they’re watching my face, waiting for their orders. And if I smile—just a little—they’ll smile too and they’ll do their jobs just another one percent better than before. That’s leadership,
yessir
. You gotta show and
project
it to everyone. They’re depending on you, and this time it’s not just the arrowhead; it’s Tau Retore. That’s a whole planet with a giant machine Spider trying to crack it open to make a galactic omelet. We’re here to save the day again.

I’m smiling because, although we’re still blasting toward the center of the big Mother Spider, right about where the main body splits to spit out the babies, I see the U-Star
Stripes
and its twin ship the
Stars
swing in ahead, rocketing in from underneath the
Boston Brand
. I smile because when the
Stars
and the
Stripes
are flying side by side, they’re cool as shit. Those are the cruisers that everyone wants to be assigned to. They’ve got the kudos, the cachet, the shiniest damned paint jobs in the whole of Fleetspace. But, I mean, what a mouthful. The U-Star
Stars
? Huh.

Anyway.

So the
Stars
and the
Stripes
pull up ahead, and the screen goes pink automatically as the pair empty all their torpedo tubes at once at big momma’s belly and the
Boston Brand
’s AI doesn’t want its crew to go blind. Ammo spent, the two cruisers curve off out of the way. It’s going to take a few seconds for the missiles to hit, and that’s when I decide to give them a little push on their way.

Now, you gotta understand, I’ve got no rep in particular. I don’t take risks. I do things by the book, and I know how to lead, and I get results. And that’s what counts—boy, does the Fleet need results. And true, there have been those who have taken risks and acted with rash strokes of genius, but those guys are mostly assholes and mostly dead.

But look. When you see a Spider up close, it’s one thing. When you see a Mother Spider with twelve legs, each ten thousand klicks long,
eating
a planet like it’s a goddamn apple, it affects you. Something stirs in the back of your brain, like you’re watching a movie or having a dream. So sometimes you get ideas, and then you know what it’s like to be one of those assholes, and you start hoping to hell you’re not about to find out what it’s like to be one of those
dead
assholes.

I think somebody on my bridge says something but my head is buzzing and my ears are full of cotton wool, and not just because I’ve got a pink-tinted Fourth of July show outside. Do they still do that back on Earth? They must. I haven’t been back in … Well, I’m not
that
old, but sometimes a five-year tour on the edge of the galaxy can feel a lot longer. Could be worse. There was this friend of mine, commander on one of the
really
big ships. “Wraiths” is what their crews call them, these ships that stay out for so long, hiding like an old-fashioned submarine just in case the Spiders pop up. After his last tour, he found me at Fleet Command and he said to me, Ida, he said …

Um. Anyway.

I’m sure somebody says something but I’m on the first pilot’s back, pulling his position around and grabbing the sticks. Maybe it’s the other pilot saying something, but then he sees what I’m doing, and looks at the screen ahead, following the green trail of the torpedoes through the pink wash—and that looks fucking freaky, I tell you—and he grabs his sticks and nods. That’s it. He sits there, and nods, and looks ahead.

See? That’s leadership, right there. He trusts me and is ready to follow me into hell if need be. Which actually isn’t far from the truth, because I count to three and open quickspace right there, with the torpedoes in front of us and the Mother Spider in front of
them
. The warp cone pops ahead of our nose, and the screen goes from pink to blue.

Well, it’s crazy and suicidal, and now people really are standing up and shouting at me, and the comms kicks into life with so many people all screaming at me that it sounds just like the wild roar of the universe.

But it works. The warp cone shunts the torpedoes forward at a speed way, way,
way
beyond their design tolerance, and when they hit the big fat Spider, they don’t just explode, they go fucking
nova,
the energy spilling from our warp cone the same as throwing gasoline on a barbecue. You ever done that? Well, next time you’re planet-side and can afford to take a trip out somewhere natural and you don’t mind a little smoke. But this, it’s like a new star has just sparked up, right over Tau Retore, right in our flight path. If there’s anything left of the Mother Spider

(The star falling and burning as though it were a lamp and then they died one and all and)

we never found it. The only shit left was a few trillion tons of scrap metal and a high percentage of helium floating in high orbit around the planet.

But we’re still heading right into this fucking mega-explosion and the warp cone is decaying quickly, so I give the order and we pop quickspace for just a second and fly
through
the explosion, and then the second pilot—promoted, needless to say—kills the engine and we slide back into space just a million klicks north. Of course we cooked the engines and the nav computer went offline to run a diagnostic, or maybe it was just really pissed off that we popped quickspace without telling it first and it went into a sulk. It was a rough ride too, and something burns out in the control console in front of the pilot and then there’s a bang and something pings against my leg, but I don’t notice, not yet. We’ve got enough juice in the tank to turn her around and coast back in. All the baby Spiders have been mopped up too, with only a few U-Stars damaged. One of which was the
Stripes,
and already someone has cracked a joke about scratching the paint job. Goddamn boys and their toys.

And you know what? We
were
in time. Tau Retore took a fucking pounding, but they’d been clever and got nearly everyone evacuated just as soon as the Spider appeared in the system. Just about the whole planet was saved, almost three hundred million of them.…

Now, that’s a result. We actually won something, and won it big. I mean, I don’t know if you heard, but things … well, things are not all rosy in this great and wonderful war. The Fleet is mighty and the Fleet is all, but, the Spiders? They might not think like us or act like us, but, goddammit, there are so many of them. I mean, it seems like we’re taking one step forward and two steps back all the damn time and …

Anyway.

So guess what? I’m a hero. A genuine, bona fide heroic sonovabitch. So then I call up the commander of the U-Star
Castle Rock,
which I see up ahead, and I ask her about how many medals she’d like to have, and then someone says my leg is bleeding and …

*   *   *

“Abraham?”

“Hmm?” Ida paused, hand reaching for the cup. His head was a little light but his throat was dry … if someone would just be so kind as to pour another shot of the strawberry liqueur, that would do nicely, very nicely indeed. He rolled the thought around in his mind and glanced at Zia Hollywood, seeing nothing but his own reflection in her mining goggles.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Zia’s lips hadn’t moved. The woman’s voice was coming from the other side of the table. Ida frowned and turned his head too quickly. The room spun in surprising and interesting ways.

“Excuse me … Serra?”

She’d called him Abraham. He hated that.

Serra shook her head, looking at him with a mixture of disgust and pity. It wasn’t a pretty expression, no matter how perfect her olive-skinned face was. She stood up and pushed her chair back, looking away.

“Come on, let’s go.” Serra’s voice was almost a whisper. Disgust was now outright embarrassment. Carter, her inseparable lover, six and a quarter feet of military might wrapped in tight olive fatigues, nodded and muttered under his breath, but Serra was already stalking away from the table. Carter stood and threw Ida a look you might call dirty.

“Jackass.”

And then they were gone, and Ida was left with the two VIPs. Fathead’s permanent grin was as wide as ever, and oddly hypnotic to Ida’s pickled brain. Zia’s face was set, expressionless, and he noticed she hadn’t had much of her drink.

Ida’s head settled a little, and he glanced around the canteen. It was late now, but a couple other crewmen of the U-Star
Coast City
were still here, backs turned to Ida’s table, apparently happy to keep out of the way of the space station’s guests.

Zia Hollywood said nothing as she stood and tapped Fathead’s shoulder. She walked off in silence, leaving her big-haired crewman to pull Ida’s empty cup away from him before picking up the red bottle and the bag it came in from the floor and following his boss out.

Ida was alone at the table. His hands played at nothing in front of him. He wished the cup would rematerialize.

Well, fuck you very much.

Ida stood quickly, chin high, chest out, and he took a breath. He was better than this. He took a step toward the canteen’s serving bar. Then his knee protested, and he relaxed his stiff-backed posture into his more regular, round-shouldered limp. The servos in his artificial joint didn’t seem to like alcohol much.

Alcohol was forbidden on all U-Stars, and while the expensive liqueur had been brought in by the famous crew of the
Bloom County,
Ida wondered if there was some of the marines’ home-brewed engine juice around. Didn’t hurt to ask.

“Hey, can I get a drink, my friend? Something …
special
. Anything you recommend?”

The canteen server had his back to him. Ida coughed, but the man didn’t turn around.

“You’ve had enough. Any more trouble and I’ll be talking to the marshal.”

Ida blinked. “Huh,” he said, tapping the counter. No progress then. Four weeks on board and he was still Captain No-Friends. The U-Star
Coast City
was turning out to be a real nice place.

Ida turned, regarded the silent backs of the other crewmen still seated at the other table, and limped out the door.

*   *   *

It was late in
the cycle and the station’s corridors were cast in an artificial purple night. Three turns and one elevator later, Ida was back in his cabin. He flicked the main light on, the autodimmer keeping it to a warm, low, white yellow. He tended to dim it during “daylight” as well, as the low light helped hide the nasty, functional nature of his quarters. What you couldn’t see, your mind filled in for you. He liked to imagine the dark shadowed corners were crafted out of fine mahogany and teak paneling. Just like he had at home.

“Ida?”

Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland was called Ida by his friends. Nearly everyone on the station called him Abraham, or worse. Mostly they called him nothing at all.

But not her.

He smiled, limped to his bed, and lay back. The damn knee … Ida raised his leg and flexed it, trying to get the psi-fi connection between the prosthetic and his brain to re-pair manually, but his leg was heavier than he remembered and lifting it made him feel dizzy. He dropped his leg and sighed, and closed his eyes.

“Hello, Ludmila,” he said.

The woman’s voice crackled with static as she laughed. It was high, beautiful. It made Ida smile.

“How was your night?” the voice asked.

Ida waved a hand—then, remembering he was alone in his cabin, switched the gesture for another dramatic sigh. “It was … bah. Who cares how my night was. How’s yours going?”

The voice tutted. “You’ve been drinking, haven’t you, Ida?”

Ida’s smile returned. “Oh, maybe one or two.”

The laugh again, each giggle cut with noise. She was so very, very far away. “Time for bed?”

Ida nodded and turned over. “Yeah, time for bed. Good night, Ludmila.”

“Good night, Ida.”

The room fell quiet, and the lights autodimmed again to match the purple dark of the rest of the station. Ida’s breathing slowed and became heavy. Underneath the sound of his slumber the room pulsed with static, faint and distant.

*   *   *

Ida dreamed; he dreamed
of the house on the farm. The red paint on the barn behind it shed like crimson dandruff in the sun and the same sun shone in the blond hair of the girl as she beckoned him to come with her, come into the house. But when he held out his hand to touch her, he was holding her father’s Bible, the one that sour old man had pressed into his hands the very day he’d first met him, insisting Ida read the damn thing each and every night.

Ida felt afraid. He would not go into the house. He looked into the sky, at the sun, but saw that the sun was a violet disk, its edge streaming black lines. He frowned. An eclipse? There hadn’t been an eclipse that day. He turned back to the girl, but she was gone and the door of the house was open, a rectangular black portal. Had her father sent her away already? Ida wasn’t sure … it hadn’t been then, had it? He and Astrid had another summer left, surely.

He took a step forward, and as he breathed the country air, the farmyard pulsed with static, faint and distant.

*   *   *