Table of Contents

- Skjaldmóðir by Michael Z. Williamson and Jessica Schlenker

- The Ghost of Kaneohe: A Short Story by Robert E. Hampson

- Of Zombies, Astronauts, and Paradise: The Hard Science Fiction of Across an Ocean of Stars by Robert E. Hampson

- Choices: A Magelight Prequel Story by Kacey Ezell

- This Means War by Melissa Olthoff

- Space Monkeys by Gustavo Bondoni

- Undercurrents by Marisa Wolf

- Traitor to the Wolfguard’s Creed by Gideon P. Smith

- The Print Job by Brian Trent

- A Name to the Wind by Tim Powers

- Ad Majórem Dei Glóriam by Tom Kratman

- Skjaldmóðir by Michael Z. Williamson and Jessica Schlenker

- To Catch a Crow: A Bronze Legion Story by Jason Cordova and Melissa Olthoff

- The World of Ringer: Living in Saturn’s Rings by Andy Presby

Baen Books

Free Stories & Nonfiction 2025

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Skjaldmóðir © 2025 by Michael Z. Williamson and Jessica Schlenker

Ghost of Kaneohe © 2025 by Robert E. Hampson

Of Zombies, Astronauts, and Paradise: The Hard Science Fiction of Across an Ocean of Stars © 2025 by Robert E. Hampson

Choices: A Magelight Prequel Story © 2025 by Kacey Ezell

This Means War © by Melissa Olthoff

Space Monkeys © by Gustavo Bondoni

Undercurrents © by Marisa Wolf

Traitor to the Wolfguard’s Creed © by Gideon P. Smith

The Print Job © by Brian Trent

A Name to the Wind © by Tim Powers

Ad Majórem Dei Glóriam © by Tom Kratman

Skjaldmóðir (final) © by Michael Z. Williamson and Jessica Schlenker

To Catch a Crow © by Jason Cordova and Melissa Olthoff

The World of Ringer: Living in Saturn’s Rings © by Andy Presby

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

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Riverdale, NY 10471

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Electronic Version by Baen Books

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Skjaldmóðir

by Michael Z. Williamson and Jessica Schlenker

My son was called a monster.

Perhaps he was even born a monster through no fault of his own, merely a victim of the gods’ whims.

I did not regard him so. I knew him best as my sweet boy, bringing me bunches of newly opened spring flowers, or asking I tell him the stories my mother told me as a child.

Perhaps I brought it down on him, through my own actions, in the years before his birth. But I had taken up a sword to defend my family; surely the gods would not punish us for that?

Not all noble families are wreathed in wealth untold. Most, in fact, are more like my own: farmers, herders, stewards of the earth. There may be some wealth earned in battle, exchanged for blood, limbs, or lives. Mostly, though, a little is earned through barter and trade, exchanging toil and sweat for enough to live on.

After a hard year, with every nearby family stretched thin, invaders came, bringing battle to our homes. Perhaps they thought we hid the wealth expected of us, but it mattered little. We fought for our lives, and I did my best to inflict as much damage as I could to save our home. But we were overwhelmed, and we fled to save the youngest. The invaders destroyed whatever they found. I still hope they kept some of it, rather than burned everything not gilt in gold or silver. But they did not desire the land itself, and we found the still smoking ruins of our home unoccupied. The cattle but one were missing. We found the remains of the one left on a smoldering spit.

We rebuilt, as my father’s family had done before and no doubt will have to again. A modest bride-price was offered for me, the eldest girl, by friends of my father’s. Unspoken was the knowledge the offer was made to assist in the rebuilding, as his friends had been spared the devastation. Thankfully, I knew the son and even liked him. We played together often enough as children.

My new husband assisted in rebuilding my family’s homestead before we moved on to our own future. My lord’s father gifted him a small amount of land from their lands, for us to build a home and to tend. Being just the two of us, we both practiced with the sword daily, and one of our first goals was to acquire sturdy armor for us both. I did not wish to be caught unarmed and unprotected by invaders if I could help it.

I quickly became pregnant with our first child, a beautiful little girl, who did not last through her first year.

When I bore our son, Grendel, we saw at once his head was slightly misshapen. But he had powerful lungs, and he was healthy. To me, that was enough. I could not bear to lose another. His birth was difficult, and although we tried for another, he remained our only surviving child.

It became apparent, over the years, that my Grendel was different, besides a misshapen skull that worsened as he grew. Large, and less coordinated than he should have been, he did not know his own strength. He hurt several of his playmates on accident, and I still remember his frightened, bewildered expression as I explained that he had done that.

“But Momma, I didn’t mean to.”

I would assure him I knew, I understood, and caution him to be more careful. My lord spent time working with Grendel, trying to teach him how to control his strength more consistently.

Then the day came, where, amid terrible thunder and rain, Grendel abruptly howled in torment, and collapsed to the ground, writhing and clawing at his face. It took both my lord and I to pin his arms before he did severe damage to himself. After a while, his body relaxed, and he simply sobbed quietly. “Grendel, my love? What’s wrong?”

“Monsters are eating my head,” he replied, voice shaky through the tears.

My lord moved him to his bed, and I made a tincture for pain. It took both of us to steady Grendel’s hands enough that he could grip the cup himself.

The second time it happened he wasn’t home, although it was another terrible storm. He knocked a playmate unconscious when they tried to help, and he had to be subdued by several adult men. My boy, barely nine, could no longer be trusted to play with children his age. I kept him home, and close even then. Closer still when the skies looked ominous.

By the age of eleven, we had little choice but to bind him to his bed when the weather would start to turn. He did not like it, but he understood. I sat with him, trying to keep him calm during the worst, singing old songs and telling stories. A tincture at the first tremors helped keep him calmer, but at the worst, he still writhed and howled as if possessed.

The rages started soon after that, rages he could not explain afterwards.

I spoke with everyone—my parents, my lord’s parents, the wise woman Edda, everyone. No one had suggestions that helped soothe my beloved son’s pain or fits.

But in between the bad days, Grendel acted ever much the young boy he truly was, by turns sweet and caring, rambunctious, helpful, and even sometimes surly. He soon nearly matched his father in height and outmatched him in strength. The day the tavern caught fire, it was Grendel who braved the billowing flames to hold open the collapsed doors so that people could escape. Had he not done so, more would have been lost. His burns healed, but the pain never quite faded, particularly the ones on his face.

The next season, invaders came again, and my lord fell defending the village.

We buried him next to the sister Grendel never knew, and grieved.

It would usually be expected that a situation worsens when one’s husband dies, but I did not expect the rapidity with which the village turned on me—us. Disgusted by the damage caused to his face by his own heroic actions, combined with the fear of a fit that none had witnessed in several years, only heard, our neighbors and other villagers took to actively avoiding Grendel, and I overheard much vicious, untrue gossip. Had they truly forgotten the scars on his face were from saving their sons and daughters when they could not? The wild tales they made of ridiculous exploits with my Grendel painted as the villain beggared belief.

The treatment slowly extended to me, as well. Shunned and avoided, I could not depend on my husband’s brother for assistance, and my own kin were overextended already. My husband’s brother did not have the honor he had, and I broke his nose after a particularly lewd comment followed by a suggestion that my son be “disposed of” for my “own good.”

The distrustful mutters and hateful glances wore on my sensitive son, and the fits of rage began to increase. We discovered that he could no longer tolerate music beyond my singing. Instruments or other singing voices caused him significant pain, and he became more and more sensitive to loud noises in general. He grew still taller, a full head beyond any man on the coast, and then inches more. The situation untenable, I began to search for a place to remove us to. Grendel needed space and quiet, where he did not have to hear the not-so whispered comments of “Monster!” that followed him.

Grendel was nigh eighteen when I was summoned to the village regarding him.

Upon arrival, I discovered he was bound and subdued, and a bit confused.

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked, gesturing at my son.

Angry voices yelled at me, but Hrothgar raised his hands for silence. He explained. Grendel had been provoked, and in his rage, killed an erstwhile playmate of years past. Punishment must be rendered, but the circumstances and Grendel’s father’s defense in the name of the king meant it would only be immediate banishment.

I bitterly reminded the king of Grendel’s own heroic actions, and that he still bore the scars and pain. The angry muttering of the crowd turned to guilty silence at the reminder.

Hrothgar admitted this, and accorded him some leeway for gathering possessions.

My husband’s brother interjected himself into the discussion and attempted to demand that all of my possessions be rendered to him for the breaking of his nose previously. Hrothgar merely snorted, as the man’s behavior was well known, but acceded he could lay claim to the land we lived on.

We were given just a few days’ time to depart. I quietly thanked the gods I had seen fit to be prepared, and there remained little left in our home to remove. I had even removed the small herd of sheep some weeks previous, to a formerly abandoned hut by the swamp, and built them a workable fence, with Grendel’s sturdy help. We would not be completely bereft, and I would be able to keep us clothed.

My husband’s brother insisted on escorting us to ensure I did not take “too many valuables” he “deserved,” and I requested other witnesses. The look he gave me made it clear he resented that I had forestalled his true intent.

Grendel, dear Grendel, remained confused and bewildered at what was happening. But he followed me quietly and did as I bid.

The bastard raged when he took in the mostly emptied homestead. The witnesses merely snickered. Edda gave me a measuring look. She had known I was worried about Grendel, and had advised I prepare for such a situation. I gave her a bitter smile.

The last of our personal belongings were easily removed from the premises. While the bastard snarled at us, one of the other witnesses stood between him and me. “Do not give me a reason to fight on her behalf,” he cautioned. “Your actions disgust me as it is.”

I was grateful for the meager defense, although I would have appreciated it more had the man ever stood up for Grendel or me these past years.

Grendel carried what I directed, in a bundle that awed the spectators. I carried the remainder, including my bow. We left. I ensured we were not followed.

The salt marsh reeked with fetid decay, but it held life enough. Only the old wise woman Edda came here voluntarily, for the herbs that could be gathered nowhere else, but were necessary to ply her trade. She would pay me for gathering those in her stead, in goods I could not make or find on my own.

The sheep fared well enough, learning to find the drier areas with edible grass. The wool kept us in clothing, lambs provided some food, and milk for cheese. Other foods, Grendel and I found in the swamp. He learned which plants were safe readily enough, and he hunted large game with his club. Faster game, I snared or hunted with bow.

It was not an easy life, but it was fairly peaceful. The hearth kept us warm, and I had a pot and a griddle. The hut was made comfortable with furs and hides. And above all, I had my son.

We used the nearby cave for a shelter for the sheep, and to store some goods. Grendel liked to be there, because it was so quiet.

He still had to be bound when the worst storms hit, but he seemed just a bit better here. The fits were fewer, and I hoped for the day they ceased. Alas, that was not to be.

Edda brought word that Hrothgar intended to build a new great hall at last, to replace the one which had burned down. At first, this did not concern me at all. It shortly became apparent that the placement and construction of the building were to bring torment to my Grendel.

The first revelry, filled with song and instruments, and the deep thud of mugs being beat against tables, rolled like a dull thunder at our distant hut. It was too much for Grendel, and I had to wrestle him into submission, binding him to keep him from causing himself injury.

I was not successful in subduing him the next time, and he ran deeper into the swamp. I feared him lost, but he returned a day and a half later, worse for the wear. He brought me a deer he had caught during the fit, but he could not tell me where he had woken up from it.

The next time I failed to subdue him, I was stunned while trying, and unable to follow. I heard the shouts of anger and screams of fear from the direction the party had been. He returned, with a few minor wounds. He was distraught to discover he had injured me, and haltingly described what he could remember of what happened in the village.

“I went into the hall, where the noise hurt most,” he said. “The door was blocked, but I forced it.”

The door fastened with a solid wooden beam, and he’d broken it. Oh, my son, what a warrior you could be, if only the demons didn’t torture you.

“They attacked me and I fought them all. I remember men hitting me, and me throwing them.”

That explained his black eye and bruised knuckles. He’d fought them all, all at once.

“I just wanted them to be quiet! My head spun, and stabbed, and I felt sick. I remember one man broke over the table when I threw him.”

He probably broke his back and was dead. Oh, Grendel, no.

Edda told me more. Grendel had killed one man and maimed two others, one of whom would never chew food again after his jaw was smashed. She looked fearful herself. “I may not be able to bring you any more supplies, if this happens again.”

“I am endeavoring to stop him,” I promised. “There seem to be certain sounds that are worse than others, ones that he runs to instead of from.”

She questioned which ones seemed to enrage him worse and drove him towards the village instead of away. I answered as best as I could. She would try to encourage at least less of those, or some kind of sign, so I would have time to prepare Grendel and restrain him.

It was the best we could manage. As the villagers had turned their stories of him into a troll or something even worse, it even worked for a while. She convinced them that deliberately enraging him was not conducive to their own peace. I owed her much.

Then came the day Edda breathlessly brought word about a traveler, Beowulf, who boasted he would end their “troll” problem once and for all. She argued hard to prevent the villagers from cheering on the insanity, but to no avail. Hrothgar planned for a huge celebration befitting such a “hero”, even that very night, in part to draw Grendel in. I gave her what would be one last hug.

“You have been the only family I have had besides Grendel these last years. Thank you.”

She returned the embrace. “I can only hope this madness can be avoided. Your Grendel does not deserve this.”

“As do I.”

When Grendel returned later, I tried to convince him to settle down early. I even gave him the soothing tinctures, which would normally ease the fits. I couldn’t bear to tell him they were setting a trap for him, and he would not settle for storms that didn’t exist. At length, I did tell him.

“But Momma, why?”

“They think you a monster and want you dead.” I stroked his cheek. “You are my beloved son, and I want you alive. Please, let me do what I can to keep you from their trap.”

He acquiesced and allowed me to bind him to his bed. I made him as comfortable as I could, and then set about doing everything possible to block out all sounds from outside of our walls. Every nook, every cranny, I stuffed full of scraps of cloth and hide. The only light left was one of our precious candles, sitting on the hearth. Even the smoke hole was as blocked as I dared risk.

It almost worked. I underestimated how desperate this “hero” was for a victory against an innocent man gossiped into a monster. The large horn, which should only have been blown in times of invaders, sounded, and Grendel screamed in agony. Thrice it blew, and the third time, Grendel convulsed and snapped his bindings.

I fought with him, trying to keep him home, with me, safe, alive. He managed to fling me wide and battered the door down. I sank to the floor and wept.

It took moments, far too many moments, to collect myself, but I managed to rise and shake off the worst of the grief-fear. Regardless of the outcome, my boy would be hurt, and I set steeping a tea of elderberry and cicuta for pain. I prepared bandages, and a tiny precious amount of honey to aid against infection. I scrubbed and heated the fire iron, to cauterize any deep wounds.

Then I prayed to uncaring, unresponsive gods that Grendel would come home to me, in condition good enough I could tend him, heal him, and take us elsewhere as soon as may be.

An echoing bellow of rage and pain, accompanied by catcalls and jeers, mocked such prayers. The hateful villagers would not be cheering so were it Beowulf who cried out in such a manner. Grief battled with rage, but I took small comfort in the boos-and-hisses. Either Grendel had scored a fair hit or managed to escape. Multiple shrieks of fear echoed, followed by a tumult of muted voices. The distant sounds faded, and I surmised that Grendel had, at the least, escaped. The darkness of the night meant I dared not try to find him, or risk losing him completely. I waited.

A countless eternity later, I heard pained weeping and a querulous “Momma?” in the dark. I ran to the sound to find my son, grievously injured and missing an arm. I shouldered up under his good arm and helped him the last distance home. Once there, I took stock of the wounds.

The arm was no clean cut of a sword, but instead showed signs of having been mostly torn off. The stump was a ragged, oozing mess with dripping blood and exposed bone. I did not, could not cry, not while Grendel looked at me with fearful eyes. “Will I be alright, Momma?”

I lied. So help me, I lied to him. Had I spoken the truth, I would have been unable to ease his suffering. “As alright as I can make you, my love,” I said. I set about doing what I could. The state of the arm was such that cauterizing was nigh impossible, and the bandages I had prepared were insufficient. Once I had it cleaned, bound, and covered, I helped him drink the tea. I settled him as best as I could.

I pressed a kiss to his forehead, and he asked me for a song. I acquiesced as a few more minutes would make little difference in the scheme of things. He, thankfully, fell asleep into a restless, pained slumber. I drew my cloak around me, and gave him one last worried look, before slipping out of the hut to head for the village.

I could afford no dignity. Perhaps Edda knew some herbs, and I would beg and abase myself before Hrothgar for the slightest of mercy. Grendel and I would retreat to the cave and subsist as we could.

The village was active, and I approached carefully, hood masking my face for the little good it would do. All of them knew me.

There was much commotion at the great hall, and I watched from far behind the crowd, hidden behind the hawthorn bushes.

I saw what they did, and my head spun. Was this real and not some horrific dream?

Grendel’s arm hung from a nail above the hall’s broad doors. A trophy to hate and fear.

I overheard Hrothgar announce, “They will sing of this deed for a thousand years.”

And that’s when the rage took me.

I could perhaps forgive Beowulf for killing Grendel. It had been the fairest fight of all. Grendel did only what gods had made him to do. But Hrothgar boasted of the deed, of the killing of my poor, darling boy. He memorialized it with blood trophies.

Hrothgar would not boast of the killing of a favored dog, taken over by the madness. Yet he would boast of the killing of my son.

Any man would avenge his son, his brother, his father for that shame. My son had none of those to call out this monster for his words. He had only me.

I would stand for him.

I turned to prepare.

I heard shouts, and knew I’d been seen.

I ran. There was nothing else I could do.

The shouts became jeers, and my breathing punctuated with sobs. I’d vowed a blood oath, and now I ran.

One voice stood out. That was Aeschere. Years ago, Grendel had beaten his son hard enough to damage his eye, and he’d never forgiven. He pursued me, though my lead was good and my legs remained strong. I hoped he’d slow and give up, with nothing but colorfully degrading insults, but while he slowed, he didn’t stop.

I squished along the high ground and onto the spit where my hut stood. He was some minutes behind, and I had just enough time. I barred the door, caught my breath, and took a drink of water, followed by a mouthful of cheese. Then I set about preparing.

Aeschere was a mouthy sort, and I knew he was trying to provoke me out, rather than enter himself. If I thought that would be the end of it, I’d tolerate his taunts through gritted teeth, but once he grew bored, he’d try to draw others with him. He wanted a fight with an old woman, and I determined he should have it.

When we fled years before, Grendel carried a huge trunk for me, effortlessly. It was in the back of the hut, next to my bed, where it served as a table, a chair, and a storage chest. I swept clothing and pouches off it, opened the lid, and hauled out the clothes within to dump them on the ground. I wanted what lay beneath.

I pulled my brynje of mail from the chest. It was darkened with age, but its rings were well-wrought, and it would protect me. I no longer had the underpadding. It was long since used for baby blankets. My dress and a winter tunic of thick wool would have to do. It was only for one fight.

The armor was snug. I was not a young girl anymore. It covered well enough, though tight on my chest, and dragged a bit on my hips. I grabbed the tails and yanked hard, bursting the three lowest rings at the front, and then it moved as it should.

I took a moment to pull the blankets around my boy, and check the bandages, which were soaked through with dark blood. I carefully bound another wrapping over them, knowing it would accomplish little. Lacking a miracle from the gods who’d never seen fit to give me a pittance, his time in this world grew short. He moaned and twitched, his ruined shoulder sensitive to every waft of air, the mattress, even my presence. I kissed his forehead gently, from above, and resumed my task.

Behind the door, well covered in dust, were my other needs. A thick leathern hat with a string to tie it, a light but sturdy shield reinforced with iron strips and rawhide edging, and my lord’s sword. I drew it from the scabbard and examined it.

There was some small amount of brown bloom that should be oiled and scoured before it turned to rust. There was no time for that now. My tormentor awaited, and I had a blood oath to fulfill.

I stood and breathed deeply, reacquainting myself with the weight of armor, and learning the heft of this sword. When I heard his voice circle around to the front again, I pulled the door and stepped out.

“Hello, Aeschere,” I said, with a sweet tone that didn’t hide my rage. “Would you care to dance?”

His expression told me he hadn’t expected a fair fight. He clutched and grasped for his sword, stuttering as he did so. He almost said something, possibly to placate me, possibly to distract. But his mind caught up and realized the futility.

He dropped into guard and waited for me to attack in rage. Oh, Aeschere, this was not my first battle, nor quite my last. I simply smiled, with a flick of tongue on lips to taunt him. He shifted and hesitated, and I stamped my foot. That startled him and I laughed.

“Afraid, are we?” I asked, advancing a half step.

He took the bait.

I am not small, but he was taller. But women balance better with sword forward and shield at a slant, while men raise the shield forward and the blade back. He advanced to where he could just reach me with his greater height, assuming I could not return the favor.

But that put him a foot into my range, and I struck, punching out my hand and whipping my wrist. I swung my sword low and it bit into the hide armoring his thigh. It did not cut through, but the impact staggered him. His blow stumbled and glanced off my shield, and I pressed at once.

He recovered with a solid swing that cut a deep nick into the hide edge of my shield, and we scrabbled around, trading blows to little effect. He was hurt but little, but he was shocked and scared. He thought to overpower me unarmed, to humiliate and shame me, and perhaps violate me. Once met, he dare not retreat from a mere woman, even if it meant an actual fight. And if he were to lose?

His blood-rage brought him in hard and fast, with a blow that half-cracked my shield and dented the boss. I grunted and powered into it, trying to get my point under his guard and to his belly. I succeeded, but it was a soft thrust and didn’t pierce. He backed up fast, and I flicked the tip up, catching his exposed forearm. Skin parted and blood flowed. I pressed again, and my next thrust just barely nicked his breast under the hardened hide.

This is the true nature of fighting, not the glorious finalities of the sagas. Two warriors cut at each other until one is weakened enough to surrender, flee or die. Neither of us could give or run. In his haste to make a name, he’d ensured one of us would succumb this day.

His next blow broke the section of shield and strained my arm, the shock jarring my elbow. My hand went numb, and pain blazed from elbow to shoulder. But he was extended and his arm weakened, and I hacked it, cutting muscle and bone so blood gushed freely.

Growling in pain, it almost seemed he’d flee, but he knew how that ended. He dropped his shield and swapped his sword to his left. Now undefended, he nevertheless had a weapon on my unprotected side. And he was angry and hurt.

It was all I could do to raise the half-shield in my damaged arm, shriek in pain as his weapon crashed down, and drop under the onslaught. That put me low, and I drove my point up into his belly. Fluid and humors spilled, and I smelled the stench of cut bowel. As my cry of pain faded, his rose, knowing he was dead.

Death was not immediate, though, and might take days. His sword was still live, as was the hand behind it.

I clutched the remnants of my shield just as he struck. Between the splinters and the mail, it felt like a blow from a club, driving the wind from me. Spots before my eyes told me I had no time. All I could do was strike again, this time cutting his thigh. That staggered him back and to the ground, where he attempted to rise and squealed, and then again.

I drew in sips of air, then breaths, and my vision cleared. Taking in a deep draught of damp swamp fog, I staggered around his fallen figure. I was a widow and a woman. There had been no honor given, and I granted none back. I batted his sword arm aside, raised my own, shouted a battle cry, and chopped.

I would come back to this. After I saw to my son.

I leaned the sword on the wall, stumbled through the hut, and into the small room. Before I opened the door, I knew it.

Grendel’s life had slipped away while Aeschere and I dueled. The man had won that much, denying me presence at my son’s passage, and denying Grendel my comfort. Oh, how I raged.

With my left arm damaged, I couldn’t even grant my son a civilized burial. Here he would remain.

I tumbled Aeschere’s separated head, its face still a mask of shock and agony, into a satchel, and slung it over my shoulder along with his shield. Little good it would do me, but it was better to have it, and my presentation would matter.

I walked the long, dreary way back the way I’d run.

This time the crowd was silent, perhaps realizing no good would come of this.

They parted for me, afraid or disgusted, it doesn’t matter now. I walked forward, armed and girded, and stood before the hall, ignoring the gruesome decoration that would only bring me anguish.

“Hrothgar, I call you out. You have wronged a widow and wronged an orphan living with a curse. You are unfit to rule. You lack the discipline to control your men, and let them rampage after a widow, with foul intent.”

I knelt and laid the sack down, grasped the bottom and pulled. Aeschere’s head rolled free, tumbling across the dirt as his nose, chin and spine bumped it. There were sounds of shock and horror among the watchers, and I heard a wail from his daughter. Part of me wanted to be sympathetic, but I choked that down and kept my heart hard.

I pointed and firmly said, “Beowulf, I call you out for killing a man with a cursed mind, knowing full well he had no kin to stand for him.

“Instead of a father or brother, you will face me in combat. I call my son murdered, and I name you the murderer.”

There was stone silence.

“Beowulf, if you claim to be a man, you will meet me alone in the cave in the marsh, the only place my son could flee from his demons. Surely one old woman is no match for you. Certainly not after you slew such a monster as a man crippled by headaches and madness.”

I turned my back and walked. I was half sure they’d dispose of me right there, but I was a woman, and whatever honor they retained let me leave unmolested. The only friend I had left made an abortive gesture in my direction, and I shook my head sharply. This was not Edda’s fight, and she was the only hope our story might be told with some measure of truth. I could not risk her as well.

There was no honorable end to come, no peace. There was nowhere further to flee from the presence of people.

I returned to the hut, to kneel beside my sweet boy and beg the gods to treat him gently. After all, it was they who chose him as a plaything for their whims.

I downed the strongest of tinctures I had left, ones I reserved for Grendel’s worst days, to ease the pain of my shattered arm and broken heart. I splinted my arm straight, at least giving me the ability to awkwardly heft a shield.

No burial was possible, but I was able to drag the furniture close to the bed, dump out the little oil I had, and kick one weakened side of the hut until it sunk lower. The fire could take it from there. I sought an ember from the hearth, blew it bright, and watched the flower of flame dance merrily on the makeshift bier. That assured, I left what remained of my life to burn brightly with dark sooty smoke and walked to the cave. I brought my sword, Aeschere’s shield, this journal, and a crust of bread.

Now I see a figure striding over the dunes and the brush, armed and ready. Distantly behind him are cheers at the thought of the death of a widow and her cursed son. I am bitter, with little to find light in, but there is one final mark in my column.

I hope that Edda, the wisest and kindest woman I ever knew, will come looking, and think to check the spot where we stored the more perishable herbs in the cool cave. That is where I will leave this journal.

I take heart in one warm thought. My lord fell in battle, and now dines in the Valhöll. Grendel was killed in combat, and has also gone ahead of me to revered Aasgarð. When this is over, I shall be reunited with my love and my dearest son. What this world never gave me, the next will. I am at peace. Perhaps the All Father will even grant the spirit of my infant daughter to us.

I will close this now. There are no more words to write. The rest must be action.

I have no illusions about how this will end. Beowulf is a professional warrior, and I am only the mother of a monster. I was lucky once, and now half maimed.

But if they will sing of him for a thousand years, they must also sing of me.

END

Michael Z. Williamson is variously an immigrant from the UK and Canada, a retired veteran of the U.S. Army and USAF, a nationally best-selling and award-winning SF author and editor, and a consultant on disaster preparedness. In his free time, he is a bladesmith, a gunsmith, and a reenactor who favors the Viking era. He lives near Indianapolis with his wife, Jessica, their children, and a variety of animals that are staff or livestock.

Jessica Schlenker is a professional geek with an MS in information security and a BS in biology. Her interests include homesteading, gaming, and reading (and dissecting) scientific papers in various fields. She lives with her husband, Michael Z. Williamson, and their children, cats, and her various homesteading animals.

Note: This story originally appeared in Fantastic Hope, edited by Laurell K. Hamilton.

The Ghost of Kaneohe: A Short Story

by Robert E. Hampson

Black Tide Rising Universe Tie-in to Across an Ocean of Stars

Lieutenant Abigail Forsyth came awake to the sound of alarms. “All pilots report to ready room. This is not a drill. All pilots report to ready room.”

Abi took the ear buds out of her ears and turned off the small music player. Sleeping with the wires leading between player and ear buds was risky. If she tossed and turned in her sleep, she risked strangling herself. She’d woken up with the wires in odd places before, but never around her neck, so she felt justified in using music to block at least a portion of the noise from outside her quarters.

She’d only been asleep for about two hours, having just come off a sixteen-hour shift doing medevac and personnel transfers across the island of Oahu. The situation in Honolulu was . . . bad. News of the Red Flu had been released a few weeks ago, but reports were starting to come in about serious issues in cities around the country. New York supposedly had National Guard in the streets, Atlanta was reporting violent mobs at the airport, Emory University Hospital, and the Centers for Disease Control campus. The mayor of Chicago issued an order a week ago shutting off TV and radio news reporting, but word got out anyway: The city was rife with rioting, looting, and gunfights.

Tourists in Hawaii were panicking; they wanted off the island. Most planned to head home . . . mainland U.S., Japan, and China for the most part. Jets flew to those destinations multiple times a day but were generally booked up for one-to-two weeks in advance, the length of a typical Hawaiian vacation. The few tourists heading to South America and Europe had it worse, with fewer flights, and even fewer available seats. The harbors were jammed with people trying to hire or buy boats, and the number of offshore accidents was increasing daily.

The normally busy roads and highways on the island were now impassable. There was not a single city block, nor mile of the circum-island roads, without accidents and abandoned cars. With the traffic jams now extending to harbors and marinas, the only reliable way to get anywhere on the island was by air.

Tourist helicopter agencies were promised large sums of money to reject private charters and stay available to the government. The governor called up the National Guard, then declared martial law to call on the military helos for support. Abi’s last three days had mostly been spent delivering Marines to help maintain security at Wheeler Army Base, Fort Shafter, Joint Base Pearl Harbor, and Trippler Military Hospital. Each base was set up to provide humanitarian aid and shelter, but were overflowing, and prone to unrest. More troops were needed, given the increasing attrition from disease and mob violence. More and more flights were becoming devoted to dust-off and medevac.

This was the life she’d chosen, though, even if it had strained her relationship with her father. He considered himself a man of science and never understood when she told him flying was her calling.

#

Abi was zipping her sleeve pocket closed as she stepped into the pilots’ ready room. “What’s up, Jimmy?” she asked her copilot, James Medlock.

“Large mob at the gates, is all I heard.”

“More civvies trying to get off the island?”

“Not entirely, Lieutenant.” Their commander, Colonel Frederick Weber, walked into the room and the collection of pilots and engineers came to attention. “Sit. It’s going to be a busy day and I know some of you didn’t get much rest.”

“Sir!” came the response in unison, followed by shuffling as the room sat in groups organized by aircraft.

“Yes, we have a mob at the gates, and no, it’s not always civilians. That’s how it started, but we’re now seeing large numbers of Infected. We bring people inside the wire as much as possible, but too many have been bitten and turned. We’ve now enforced the perimeter with another layer of fencing, razor wire, and concrete barriers. We can block the roads, but the land is even harder. There’s now a secondary roadblock on Mokapu Road once it crosses Nu’upia Pond, to keep people from using the dirt roads. We still get people wading across Nu’upia and Kaluapuhi Ponds and walking up the beach, so the perimeter is getting harder to secure. Higher is calling for evacuation.”

“Where?” asked one of the engineers.

“Anywhere we can.” Weber sighed. His pilots knew the colonel worked hard to project a calm and unflappable manner. He would not be hurried or rushed. “All of the available sea assets at Pearl have instructions to leave port. They even tried to get some of the inactives sailing, but so far, have only managed to get the gator Tarawa out to sea. PacFleet has a cruiser and an oiler sitting about fifty miles east, and there’s supposed to be carriers headed to Midway Island. Most of the subs are already gone, except for the ones undergoing maintenance. The Air Force is being scattered to remote bases, the Navy’s at sea, the Army’s headed back to the mainland, and the Marines are holding the line.”

There was quiet muttering in the room. The implications were clear, Marine Corps Base Kaneohe Bay would be staying operation, and many of their people would be making the ultimate sacrifice to save as many as they could.

“Okay, here are the assignments:

“Steeler and Pots—your Thunderhawks will be making runs to Hickam where you’ll assist with carrying provisions and personnel for the C-17s headed to Midway, Pago Pago, and Elmendorf. When you get notice of last run, board the planes. They’re taking UH-60 Blackhawks, so you’re going to be the backup flight crew wherever you end up.”

Chris “Steeler” Steele and Tom “Pots” Potter nodded, then turned to discuss with their respective crews.

“Pearl is pulling back to secure the airport and docks. Everything west and north is pulling in to reinforce the lines. Schofield and Wheeler have been overrun. Mililani’s all Zeds at this point. Pearl City is barely holding things together, with a defensive perimeter set up at the stadium to hold the memorials as long as possible. That’s a terminal assignment, and the Marines will hold the line.”

“Oorah, sir,” about half the room responded. Weber smiled but dropped it as soon as he resumed the assignments.

“Rickroll and Workman: you two are Task Force Running Back. You’ll be taking reinforcements to the stadium and evacuating Ford Island. I’m told there’s some USS Missouri Vets requesting transport to the ship. You will honor their sacrifice.”

Rognar “Rickroll” Rickard and Kepeli “Workman” Werkiser nodded. Weber handed them a sheet of paper with names and pickup location for the navy veterans.

“Kybo, you’re headed to Washington Place to pick up the governor and his staff. Your callsign will be Marine Five-Zero until you pick up Hizzoner; at that point you’ll squawk ‘Hawaii One’ until you deliver him planeside to the C-130 headed for the garrison at Pohakuloa. Wheels up in thirty minutes, so you and your crew are dismissed to go now.”

Kai “Kybo” Bond stood, along with his copilot and engineer, saluted, and left the room.

“Argus, Psych, you have the worst of this, but I saved my best for the job.”

Abi sat up straighter, waiting for her assignment, along with her wingman Bill “Psych” Jung.

“Your mission is designated ‘Tempest’ and you’ve got the dirty job of base evac. We’re pulling noncombatants and civilians off base and sending them to those two ships offshore. When Kybo gets back, we’ll try to get some troops over to Tarawa, but we have to raise her on radio first, and that’s been difficult. She was mothballed for a reason.

“Psych, you’ll be Tempest One, delivering troops to Port Royal, she’s a Tico-class cruiser. You might remember her from the little incident off Pearl a few years back. She’s standing in for destroyer escort for the Yukon, a Kaiser-class oiler. They were supposed to be part of a FleetEx out of San Diego, but it got called off, and they were sent here and ordered to stand off and wait. Take as many—safely—as you can, but just know that when that C-130 heads out, that’s it. Wartime rules of engagement, so do what you have to, but get your people to safety when Penguin Four-Two leaves.”

The pilots and crews started to stand up, but Weber motioned for them to remain seated.

“One last thing. As you know, callsigns are awarded by your fellows; once given, you’re stuck with it, whether you did anything to deserve it or not.”

Abi wondered where this was going. Her own callsign was nothing special, but she remembered the night of Captain Bond’s promotion, when he’d sat at the bar telling his fellow pilots how the word “kybo” had been used as slang for “latrine” in his old Boy Scout troop. He’d love to have a better callsign, but also knew that the more a pilot responded negatively to a callsign, the more their fellows used it specifically to elicit a reaction. Besides, his helo would have the really cool designation today.

“On the other hand,” Weber continued, “It is possible to earn a new call sign when circumstances demand it. Yesterday, Argus made several transfers between Wheeler, Fort Shafter, and Trippler, despite some heavy rains mid-day. A news crew caught the image of a CH-53E coming into the pad at Trippler, appearing like a ghost out of the mist. General Matt Bowman called me from Trippler this morning asking about the pilot of the ‘ghostbird’ that delivered additional forces to defend the hospital, then repeatedly pulled critical cases out for evac.

“That was you, Argus . . . and as of today, you’ll be ‘Ghostbird.’ Congratulations. Now get out of here, you lot. You’ve got work to do. Godspeed . . . and . . .” Weber’s voice cracked. “God bless you all. It’s been an honor.”

#

Abi boarded her CH-53E Super Stallion through the crew door behind the cockpit. As she entered, she patted the names—her own and Stargazer—stenciled below the pilot’s window and smiled at the depiction of one of Mauna Kea’s telescope domes painted underneath. Her father would have loved it, even if he didn’t support her career choice.

She settled into the right-hand seat and looked over at her copilot. “You’ve done the daily run-up, right Jimmy?”

“Ah, no Argus—ah, ‘Ghostbird.’ No, there hasn’t been time, we just came in four hours ago!”

“Jimmy, what did I say about call-signs in the cockpit?”

“Ah, sorry Abi, I know you didn’t like Argus, but Ghostbird sounds pretty cool.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t even do anything to deserve Argus, it’s just a play on ‘foresight.’ Not like Kybo hoarding toilet paper or Rognar insisting on being called ‘Rockstar.’”

“Yeah, but they’re funny, and their reactions were perfect. You just curled your lip and sneered, Abi.”

“Back to the bird . . . Meddler. Do we have enough hydro for startup? The APU seemed to cut out early when we left Trippler on the last round.”

“That was low fuel pressure. We were running on fumes when we got in, but we’re all fueled and ready now.”

“Hydraulic pressure on the APU, Jimmy!”

“Twenty-six hundred PSI, Argus.”

“You’re a shit, Jimmy. If we have to manually pump for a second attempt, it’s on you.”

Sure enough, the auxiliary power unit, necessary to provide power to activate instruments and starter for the three General Electric T64-GE-416 turboshaft engines, didn’t catch on the first try due to low pressure. Three-thousand pounds per square inch was the nominal requirement to spin the turbines of the APU for startup. It could be done with pressure as low as twenty-five hundred, but the chance of failure increased as the pressure dropped.

Abi pulled up the pressure pump handle but motioned for Medlock to start pumping.

“Start pumping, Jimmy.”

“Aw, crap, Abi! Call over a starter truck! There’s one over next to Pots.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, they’re about to pull a cowling on his SH-60, so they’re just a little bit busy. It’s only a hundred PSI, Jimmy. Pump!” she said, using her command voice.

It took ten minutes to get the required pressure in the APU hydraulics, but the engine caught on the next try, and four minutes later, she had all three main engines online and the rotor coming up to speed.

“Check the hydro, Jimmy, make sure we’re at full pressure before you cut off the APU this time.”

“Aye, aye, Lieutenant.”

Abi checked in with her crew chief, Lai Moleka, to make sure that the cargo bay was ready for passengers, then called the control tower for permission to proceed from the helo pads to a site just off the eastern end of the runway where noncombatant military personnel and dependents were being organized for evacuation. Civilians who’d sought refuge from the Infected were being housed in tents on the golf course, east of the evac site. They’d be next, once the high priority folks were taken to safety.

Bill Jung’s helo arrived first and got the cleaner site near the control tower. There were Marines still on the ground performing a FOD-walk, removing “foreign object debris” from the concrete in front of the HMM-268 headquarters. She hovered while the men cleared her landing zone, then landed and performed her checks while Moleka dropped the rear ramp and started loading passengers.

It wasn’t supposed to be a hot-loading, so she disengaged the rotors and let them wind down. The engines would continue to run. They could be airborne in as little as thirty seconds. That may be important later, but this was still supposed to be routine. She wondered about Weber’s parting words, though. He’d acted as if this was the end—like he’d never see them again.

It was a sobering thought.

Abi wasn’t overt about her religious beliefs, but her fellows knew them. On the one hand, she honestly felt that this couldn’t be the end. On the other hand, she would pray for everyone’s safe return. On the gripping hand, as one of her favorite science fiction novels would put it . . . she had a job to do.

Time to act on faith.

#

“Ramp's down, LT,” came Moleka’s voice over the comm. Abi looked out at the gathering crowds. Military personnel were herding noncombatants into a semblance of order, but it looked like herding cats. Civilians—mostly family members of soldiers and local base employees—were clumped together. Parents clutched at children, and children clutched at stuffed animals and toys. Fear radiated off them in waves, and it was clear that they expected to see Infected burst from the shadows at any moment. The dense humid air was filled with the distant roar of choppers and the occasional crackle of gunfire.

Abi flicked a switch on her panel, activating her mic. “Get them loaded, Lai. The faster we load, the more trips we can make.” She was regretting shutting down the rotors. It was dangerous to start them up now, during loading. The rotors were high enough, but the downwash could hurt the civilians, both those loading, and those waiting. The look on the faces gave her the sense of urgency her orders lacked.

What she’d left unsaid was that the more trips they made, the more people they could save . . . until it was too late to save even themselves.

It was the commander’s job to keep calm, though. Airline pilots, rescue workers, and incident commanders had long known that portraying a sense of calm, even boredom, helped soothe the public, passengers, or even the crew. If the boss wasn’t afraid, there was no reason for them to be afraid.

Even if that boss was a bundle of nerves and a burgeoning ulcer.

“We’re exposed out here, Abi,” Medlock said over their private channel.

Abi didn’t respond. She agreed, but she needed to project calm. Her eyes scanned her instruments, the crowd outside, then the horizon. It was routine.

It was all routine, she told herself.

As her gaze panned over the line of people waiting to load, she saw a woman carrying two small children stumble, then scramble to get back in line, her eyes wide with terror. These people needed reassurance, they were close to panic, and panic wouldn’t do any of them any good.

She flicked a switch on her panel, activating her external speaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Please move calmly down the aisle and take your seat. The cabin crew will be by shortly to assist you with stowing your luggage and adjusting your seatbelts. Thank you for flying Ghostbird Air.”

Hopefully, a bit of humor would help.

She scanned the horizon, past the barricades and hastily constructed fences of her loading area. They were deep in the base, almost to the water’s edge. Almost a mile away, and the base was on a peninsula, separated from the rest of the island by a narrow causeway. In fact, MCBH K-Bay was well isolated. The roads connecting the base to the towns of Kaneohe and Kailua were the only dry land outside the base perimeter. Nearly a quarter mile of ponds and swamps separated the base from the residential areas at Kapoho Point. A small Marine detachment held the gates and patrolled the barriers meant to hold back the Infected.

They were less worried about mobs of civilians, although there was certainly some massing at the gates.

People would be reluctant to wade across the treacherous wetland.

Infected didn’t care.

#

Moleka notified her that the current load of passengers was in and secured.

“Button up, Jimmy. Time to go.”

“Roger, Ghostbird.”

Abi shot him a look of exasperation, but Medlock just grinned back. “C’mon, admit it. You got the cool call sign.”

He turned back to his console and flicked the switches, starting up the seven-bladed rotor.

Abi looked out her side window, seeing the Marines were keeping the crowd well back from her bird. She gripped the collective and cyclic, and when her instruments showed her engines at the proper speed, she pulled back on the cyclic and lifted her bird into the air.

“MCAS Kaneohe, this is Tempest Two. Lifting for USNS Yukon. Do you have an update to the coordinates?”

“Affirmative, Tempest Two. Yukon has repositioned to just over eighty klicks due north of Kawela Bay. That puts them about fifty miles off the northern point of Oahu at twenty-two-point-forty-one North and one-fifty-seven-point nine-one West. Port Royal is squawking a beacon for you and Tempest One, so make sure you land on the big fleet oiler, Ghostbird, and not on the little cruiser.”

“Roger, that, Kaneohe. Fly north and find the big honking ocean mall.”

Another voice came over the comm. “Ghostbird, you and Tempest One are the only birds in range right now. Psych’s already headed out, so base command has requested a flyover of the southern perimeter before you head out. Give us a report on the mob at the fence line.”

“Acknowledged, Kaneohe. Flyover the southern perimeter and report. Do you want me to stay high, or go low enough to disrupt the crowd with rotor wash?”

“Stay high, Ghostbird. No need to sully your new callsign just yet. The gate Marines are still reporting mostly civilians, but we’re getting reports of massed Infected moving up Mokapu Road.”

“Understood, Kaneohe. We’re feet wet, swinging around now. Tempest Two out.”

The principal runway for the base pointed northeast, into the prevailing winds. Abi’s loading point was just south of the end of the runway, so she headed due east, over the Five Palms military hotel and officer housing, heading out over the water off North Beach. She’d stay over water, skirting around Mōkapu Point then turn south-by-southeast until she reached the Nu’upia Pond which separated the base from the peninsula.

After surveying the base entrance, she’d continue west over Kaneohe Bay itself, then turn northwest to hug the windward coast before turning north at Kahuku to cross the fifty miles of ocean to Yukon and Port Royal.

“Look sharp, people. Lai? Are you in position to look out?”

“I’m looking over the starboard gunner’s position, Boss. I’m looking right down at Mokapu Road and the motor pool. There’s a line of people who’ve been passed through the old gate, headed to the new security point on the other side of the pond. They’re being escorted by Marines and it’s all nice and orderly. Doesn’t look too bad. Old gate is on the port side, though. Steve-O’s got that side, but I can move over if you want me to.”

Steve “Steve-O” Jaremczek was the left-side gunner. Due to the risk of attack by Infected, Tempest Two was flying with an augmented crew of right, left, and tail gunners plus the crew chief. Normally the chief took the right-side gunner position, but with the need to handle civilians, and the fact that they’d already had to fight off Infected on previous days, Command had ordered that each helo carry an augmented crew.”

“No need, Chief. Steve-O? How’s it look?”

Unlike the main gate, the Mokapu Road main gate was on the south side of the ponds, separated from the residential area by a fence—newly reinforced and augmented with barricades over the last several days, then supplemented with a new temporary gate on the base side.

“Mass of people at the gate . . . don’t look like Zeds . . . Oh!” Jeremczek cut off. “Mob of naked people on Mokapu Road, down near the shopping center. They’re about a thousand yards off the gate. It looks like they’re attacking people in the parking lot.”

Abi halted their forward motion and rotated the helo so that she could see the checkpoint with her own eyes. All the reports said that victims of the Haole Flu stripped off all their clothing and complained of uncontrollable itching right before they turned into blood-thirsty savages.

“LT, there’s trouble at the fence.” Moleka’s voice snapped through the headset, cutting off Jeremczek at the latter’s viewpoint changed.

Abi looked down through her side window. Through the haze of dust and mass of people, she saw it—just a flicker of movement, but enough to draw her gaze. A young man at the back of the line, maybe mid-twenties, was stripping off his clothes. He was scratching all over, then stopped and clutched his stomach. Even from here, she could tell that something about the way he staggered felt wrong. She narrowed her eyes, hands gripping the control stick tightly.

“I see it, Lai. Jimmy, call it in.” Abi ordered, forcing her voice to remain calm. Every instinct told her that something was wrong here. Fear and training warred within her, but ultimately, she was a professional—an officer—and a Marine. Marines didn’t run.

Medlock twisted in his seat, craning his neck to look through Abi’s side window. “I see him,” he muttered. “Shit, that kid’s turned.”

Thankfully, the Marines at the gate saw it, too. A squad pushed through the crowd, clothed in heavy gear—too heavy for the tropical heat, but necessary to keep from getting bitten. They didn’t dare shoot into the crowd, but they surrounded and isolated the Infected before he could attack civilians, then took him down with repeated blows to the head.

“Could he have been saved?” Medlock whispered.

“Not our call, Jimmy. Wartime rules,” Abi replied.

“Yeah. Sucks, though.”

“That it does, Jimmy.”

The rest of the flight was routine. So far, the main gate—north of the ponds, and thus having a buffer separating it from the residential area—was clean and orderly. Evacuees still streamed onto the base, and Abi prayed they’d be able to help them all.

#

The CH-53E hummed steadily as it crossed the ocean, the roar of its powerful rotors beating a steady rhythm over the waves below. Abi kept her eyes forward, scanning the horizon as the helo cut through the early morning sky. The sun was already high enough that it didn’t shine directly into the cockpit. In her headset, Medlock’s voice crackled.

“Yukon’s about ten miles ahead, LT. Should have her in sight soon.”

“Copy that,” Abi replied, her grip firm, but light on the controls. The memory of the mob of infected attacking people in Kailua still weighed on her. They needed to drop off this group and get back to K-Bay. People were counting on them.

“We’ve got a visual,” Moleka chimed in from the right gunner’s window. “Starboard, fifteen klicks.”

Yukon was out of position; they should be twelve kilometers ahead, not fifteen to their right. Abi’s eyes scanned her instruments, as she verified that Stargazer was in the right place—Yukon was not. She looked east and the shape of the ship appeared in the distance, a dark silhouette against the shimmering water. USNS Yukon was a Kaiser-class fleet replenishment oiler, typically used to supply “gas, grub, and gear” for fleet exercises. That was exactly what her mission had been, servicing a FleetEx out of San Diego, but by the time they’d arrived on-site, the capital ships had been ordered back to port, and the rest to scatter. The FleetEx had been in the middle of the Pacific, halfway between Hawaii and the mainland, so they’d been ordered to head to Pearl to assist in emergency operations.

Unfortunately, but the time they’d approached the Hawaiian Islands, the situation had deteriorated. There’d been an explosion near the sub pens at Pearl, and Yukon—plus her cruiser escort, USS Port Royal, had been ordered to hold position offshore, far enough that they would remain free of the chaos infecting the islands.

That is, until Yukon and Port Royal were pressed into service as lifeboats, large as they were.

“They’re steaming into the wind. Not ideal,” Abi said. “We’re coming in on their stern and will have turbulence off their superstructure. Prepare for a hard deck landing.”

As they closed the distance, the scale of the operation became clear. Apparently, they’d already taken on refugees via surface craft, there were several pulled up alongside, with more small craft hanging from the massive deck cranes. The ship’s foredeck held a number of people, just sitting on the deck, huddled together away from the railings. Marines, distinguishable by their uniforms, moved through the crowd, handing out . . . something.

“They’ve already got people down there,” Medlock muttered. “Doesn’t look good, for holding too many more.”

Abi didn’t need to be told. The more people they packed onto these ships, the greater the risk someone would turn. The Haole Flu could already be incubating in any of them. All it took was one person to turn, to transform an orderly group into a panicked mob.

She keyed the mic. “Yukon, this is Tempest Two, inbound for delivery. ETA two minutes. Do you copy?”

Static crackled over the channel before a voice came through. “Tempest, this is Yukon. Standby for the captain.”

“Copy that, Yukon. Be advised we have six-zero civilians. Limited supplies. No infected, but you know the situation.”

“Very good, Ghostbird,” said a new voice on the radio. “This is Captain Knox. Your reputation precedes you, and I’m happy to have you making the deliveries. Marines have the situation well in hand for now, but it’s . . . tense.”

“Understood, Captain,” Abi replied, glancing at Medlock, whose jaw was clenched. “We’ll be down shortly. May I ask why you’re making headway? The turbulence around your superstructure will make landing . . . spicy.”

“Ah, Ghostbird, we’re trying to maintain airflow over the deck to keep down the chance of cross-infection. Something new out of PacFleet. Don’t know if it works, but the orders came down this morning. I can tell the engine room to reduce speed, and resume once you’re down.”

“No need, Captain, spicy landings are all in a day’s work.”

“And that’s why you get the cool callsign,” Medlock muttered.

“Your mic’s hot, Meddler. Shut it,” Abi admonished, after carefully switching to the intercom.

As they approached the ship, Abi brought the Super Stallion into a steady hover behind the stern of the ship, watching Marines check the landing pad and remove the barricades that kept the civilians off the rear deck.

“Monitor clearance and call out the distance” Abi told Medlock as she slowly moved over the landing zone and rotated the helo so that its nose was pointed astern of the ship.

“Dead center on the X. Twenty down. Ten. Five. Contact,” Medlock said as a light illuminated on the console.

Abi pushed the cyclic all the way down and killed the power to the rotors, but kept the engines idling, ready for a quick lift-off if things went sideways. She’d backed the Super Stallion into place so that the passengers could proceed directly onto the deck without having to maneuver around her bird. The “garage door” hatch in the superstructure was open with Marines ready to escort the passengers under cover and off the landing pad at the stern of the ship.

“Ramp’s down, LT,” Moleka reported. “We’re ready to unload.”

Abi unbuckled her harness and stood, slipping out of the pilot’s seat. “Medlock, stay with the bird. I’m going to talk with the captain and see how bad things are.”

As she moved toward the back of the helicopter, the heat from the engines dissipated into the cool sea air. Abi stepped onto the deck, immediately hit by the smell of saltwater, sweat, and something far more acrid—the stench of fear.

“Lieutenant Forsyth?” A Marine in full combat gear stepped over to her, his face grim beneath his helmet.

“That’s me,” Abi said, cutting straight to the point. “What’s the situation?”

“I’m your escort to the bridge. Captain Knox wants to talk to you before you head back.”

“Excellent. It’ll take a few minutes to unload and secure the bird. Lead on.”

Instead of heading inside, the Marine, whose name patch read CAMPBELL, motioned toward one of the external stairways covering the rear of the superstructure. It was six levels up to the bridge, but the Marine double-timed it, and Abi did her best to keep up.

In the bridge, she was greeted by a tall man with wavy black hair and a prominent widow’s peak. “Ghostbird, Lieutenant Forsyth, I presume?”

“Captain Knox.” Abi came to attention and saluted. Technically, they were under cover, and a salute contraindicated, but she was reporting to a superior officer on assignment.

Knox smiled and quickly returned the salute. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Not necessary, but welcome. Good order and discipline may be the only things we have left in these . . . circumstances.”

“How bad is it, sir?”

“We’ve been pulling boats out of the water for the past three days.” He turned and pointed out the forward bridge windows which looked out over the cargo deck with the large cranes, one of which was placing a small fishing boat back into the water. “We have no choice but to cut them loose and let them drift. It’s the other reason we’re making way. Port Royal has pulled a few over the side, but they don’t have the capabilities we do. On the other hand, they have hangar facilities and we don’t. They’re mostly going to be taking on by air—your wingman I believe, Tempest One?”

“Psych’s one of the best, sir. We’ll rescue as many as we can.”

“It won’t be enough Lieutenant, especially if we get too many infected at once.”

“How many?”

“We’ve had six so far today. Two turned early this morning, we pulled four off boats in the process of turning, and didn’t catch it in time. They’ve been trickling in. We’re holding the ones who’ve turned in a section on the bow. Doc’s sedated them, but there’s non-infected out there as well. The crowd’s on edge; people are awfully close to freaking out, and we’re running out of space that won’t interfere with operations.”

Abi followed his gaze to a barricaded area at the very front of the ship. Inside, she could see a handful of people, naked, tied up with rope and lying on the deck, mostly unmoving, but with occasional twitches. They were watched closely by ten Marines with rifles. They looked peaceful enough from a distance, as if they were sleeping, but Abi had seen enough of the Haole Flu—especially the Infected’s resistance to sedation—to know that appearances could be deceiving.

“Anyone else showing symptoms?” she asked.

Knox nodded grimly. “A few. We’ve got one guy with a fever, and another right before you got here. She started screaming about ants crawling all over and tried to strip off her clothes. We’ve tried to separate them, but it’s getting harder to keep under control. If one of them turns in the middle of the refugees, it’ll be a massacre.”

Abi’s gut twisted. “Understood, sir. What can we do for you?”

“I need to get them off my ship.” Knox hesitated, clearly not liking what he was about to say. “Take them off.”

“Sir, I have orders to not take back anyone who isn’t in uniform and under orders.”

“Not back to land, I want you to take them out and drop them.” Knox’s expression was grim.

“Sir?” Abi was shocked. It was callous, cruel—not to mention criminal—but perhaps necessary.

“Lieutenant, I can’t just push them overboard. Sedation barely works, so I can’t just overdose them. I can’t keep them here, and I can’t just . . . dispatch them in front of the other civilians.

“Oh,” she said.

“Not to mention the effect on morale of the Marines.”

“Understood, sir. But that means you’re just dumping your problem on my crew. With all due respect . . .sir . . .Marines volunteer to do the dirty jobs. My crew understands risk, but I’m afraid that’s an order I can’t follow.”

Knox stared at her for a moment, then sighed.

“You’re correct, Lieutenant. I can’t order you to do this. That said, what do we do?”

“Put them in the boats you set adrift? If it’s possible to save themselves, they’ll have an opportunity.”

“PacFleet says the zombie phase of . . . what do you call it? The Haole Flu? They say that the zombies don’t—can’t—recover, but I guess you are correct. Getting them out of view of anyone else will work, and we can’t do anything for them here.”

“Agreed, sir, and it will keep from panicking the civilians.”

Knox rubbed his face with his hands, then lowered them into fists at his sides. “This is war, Lieutenant. It’s not a declared one, but it’s a war for the survival of the human race.”

“And war is hell, sir.”

“Exactly.” Knox stared out over the deck for a few more moments. “Go, Ghostbird, you’re dismissed. Go get me as many survivors as you can. We’ll load up as many as we can then head for Midway. It’s isolated enough, and this old bucket has enough provisions to keep us going for quite a while.”

Abi came to attention, clicking her heels so that he’d notice, and saluted once again.

After Knox returned the salute, Abi assured him, softly, “As many as we can, sir.”

Racing back down the gangways, Abi got back to her bird in time to see Moleka handing one of the deck crew the last of the personal effects left on the helo. It was a small teddy bear, dressed in a cute vest and bow tie.

The various noises of a ship underway made it difficult to hear, but no different than around helos. Abi could just make out their raised voices as the crew chief told the sailor: “Little girl, about five. Yellow dress. Vietnamese, I think. Mom said her father’s doing security at Pearl. There’s not a lot of hope there, so be gentle.”

“Aye, aye, Chief. We’ll take care of them.”

“Time to get clear, sailor. We’re inbound for another load. Captain says to bring out as many as we can. Lai, button us up.” Abi grabbed a microphone off the bulkhead next to the ramp and keyed the cockpit channel. “Jimmy, start us up and get us airborne. Don’t wait for me.”

Moleka looked at her strangely as the sound of the engines ramped up.

“Captain asked if we could drop infected at sea. Not gonna happen.”

“Oh. Understood, LT. Something we must figure out, though, what if someone turns in flight?”

“When and if, Chief. We’ll make the decision only when and if we have to. For now, we’re playing Valkyrie.”

#

Tempest Two made two more roundtrips, carrying almost two hundred people out to the Yukon by virtue of many children carried on a parent’s lap, freeing up additional seats for more evacuees. On the last trip out, she’d noticed a drifting boat with several naked bodies on it. The location and direction of drift suggested that Captain Knox had adopted her suggestion regarding how to deal with the Infected. It was brutal but was also just enough to salve her conscience.

Once again, they were back at MCBH, preparing to take more people out to the ships. The crowd didn’t seem to be lessening, though. There were still a lot of people waiting for evacuation.

Abi had swapped landing sites with Psych. Bill Jung’s Tempest One had made one fewer round-trip than Tempest Two due to carrying sling loads below helo on the way out to the Port Royal. Loading took additional time, not required for Abi’s purely personnel flights.

Psych had moved over the western edge of the base, where a short-take-off-and-landing runway was being refurbished in anticipation of the first delivery of MV-22 Ospreys in the next few years. It was a shame the vertical take-off-and-landing craft weren’t available for this evacuation, but they would have been limited in usefulness, as the only at-sea platform equipped to handle the tiltrotor aircraft was a full-sized aircraft carrier, and most of those were either in dock or well outside of range from Hawaii.

Abi did a walk-around, ensuring that there was no obvious damage from their multiple round-trips to the Yukon. Abi continued to decline Captain Knox’s offer to reduce headway for her landings, even though the ship was now steaming on an arc that was beginning to take it in a crosswind direction. The turbulence had been rough on their last landing, and she’d had to bring the helo down hard. Fortunately, aside from quite literally rattling her passengers, there didn’t seem to be any damage.

Moleka and Jaremczek were lining up people prior to beginning to load. The sun was just barely above the Ko Olina range to the west of the base, and Abi knew this would be the last flight in daylight. She and her crew were prepared to fly in the dark, but even with the declaration of wartime rules of engagement, they’d been at it for over ten hours.

Colonel Weber had notified her and Jung that they were to take crew rest on their respective ships. They could refuel and resume in the morning.

If there’s anyone alive to return for, Abi thought to herself.

Tempest One’s loading point was just over five hundred feet away, on the other side of the main runway. After checking her own bird, she looked over at the sling-load being prepared for Psych. Much to her surprise, she noticed that the load was large wooden crates that were being loaded with . . . people?

Abi hurried back the cockpit of her bird, donned her headset and switched to the squadron channel. “Tempest One, Psych! What the hell are you doing?” Abi called into the radio. The number of people waiting to board the crate was dwindling, and it looked like the ground crew was ready to close it up.

Jung’s voice came back over the radio. “Ghostbird, we don’t have a choice.”

“You’re planning to haul people under the helo? That’s insane, Bill! They’re not cargo—this isn’t safe.”

The voice on the radio was level, but cold. “We don’t have time for anything else. Port Royal’s already in trouble. They had several Infected, and we must save a flight strictly for supplies and weapons. It’s either take them all now or leave them behind, and you know damn well we can’t do that.”

Abi watched as the harness rig was led over to the helo. It had enough slack to allow the CH-53E to lift, but it also risked the cargo being dragged over the ground and damaged if Psych didn’t position the helo just right before lifting. “You’ll get them killed. You hit even a little turbulence, and that whole load is gone. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that we’re running out of room inside, and we need to get more people out, fast. The base is about to go under, and this is the only way to take more than a few at a time.” Psych’s tone was cold and hard. “I know the risk, Ghostbird.”

Jung’s tone shocked Abi almost as much as the words. “It’s not safe, Bill,” she countered.

“We don’t have the luxury of safe, Abi. We’re past that.”

Abi felt the heat rise in her chest. She wanted to argue. She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, but somehow the same instinct that told her the kid in line earlier was going to turn was telling her they were out of time. “There has to be another way, Bill.”

“I don’t like it either,” Bill admitted, “But it’s necessary.”

The radio clicked. The conversation was over.

Abi opened her mouth to argue further, but the screech of alarms cut through the air, followed by the sharp crack of gunfire. She turned to look back into the helo, Jaremczek was getting people seated, while Moleka was directing them up the ramp.

They’d just started loading, and the line snaked back to a holding area off to the side. It looked like more people than they could manage in a single flight.

She turned back to her controls, and something caught her attention out her side of the helo. A man was running toward the holding area. He finished ripping off his sweatshirt and now tearing at his shirt.

Abi's blood turned cold.

Not again.

“Moleka!” she shouted. “Check the guy coming toward the line—dark hair, just took off a blue hoodie . . . He’s infected!”

Within seconds, Abi saw Moleka barreling past her window, yelling at the Marines nearby to help. The young man was on his knees, stripping off the rest of his clothes. He stood back up and Abi could see people in line jump back, fear now bubbling into full-blown panic. Screams erupted.

“Get him out of there!” Abi barked. Her hand hovered over the controls, ready to initiate takeoff if things went south. The last thing she wanted was a Zed on her bird.

Before Moleka could reach him, the young man convulsed violently. His skin, already pale, took on a bluish tint. He made a sound—a deep, wet growl—that froze Abi’s blood.

“He's turning!” she heard Steve-O say through her headset.

Moleka didn’t hesitate—he rushed forward, tackling the man to the ground with a forceful thud. The crowd around them surged backward, people stumbling and screaming, nearly trampling each other as they tried to escape. Panic rippled through the evacuees, and the orderly line disintegrated into a chaotic scramble for safety—fortunately, away from the helo.

Abi's knuckles whitened as she gripped the control stick. “Get that ramp up!” she ordered Jaremczek, fear crawling up her spine. If more were infected, it was only a matter of seconds before the situation spiraled out of control. Lai could board through the starboard door, but she didn’t want a mob on the ramp. She watched as Moleka struggled with the young man, pinning him to the dirt as two Marines rushed to assist. The man’s eyes were red, and there was no sign of intelligence . . . only rage.

“LT!” Medlock's voice broke through Abi’s focus. “The fence! Tower says they’re breaching the fence!”

Abi snapped her head to look back toward the main gate, even knowing that it was a mile away and on the other side of all the base buildings. In the back of her mind, she noted that the ramp was still down. The engines were too loud to hear the gunfire she knew would be there, but several loud “whumps” and shocks announced the mines that had been emplaced all along the neck of the peninsula.

Marine Corps Base Hawaii was lost.

“Shit, we’re out of time!” Abi growled, slamming a hand on the control panel. “Moleka, we’re closing the ramp!”

“Not yet, LT!” Moleka’s voice was strained. He and the Marines had dragged the convulsing young man off to the side, away from the evacuees, but the situation was getting out of hand. Another one of the civilians, a woman holding a child, was holding her hand to her neck, blood was beginning to seep through her fingers—she’d been bitten.

“Moleka, now!” Abi’s heart pounded in her ears as she imagined the scene of infected crossing the base, charging toward her helo. It was still too soon, but that didn’t stop her imagination.

As the woman started to convulse, Moleka grabbed the infant and ran for the ramp. “We’re on!” he shouted as the Marines practically threw themselves into the cargo bay.

A whine started as Jaremczek finally started closing the ramp.

Abi caught motion out of the corner of her eye, expecting it to be more Infected running across the field, but it was a C-130 on the runway, taking off. That was the one they’d been told about, Penguin Four-Two, taking the last of Third Battalion and their leadership to Pohakuloa Training Area, in the high pass between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on the Big Island.

This was it.

The Last C-130.

“Get us out of here, Abi!” Medlock yelled; his voice sharp with fear.

Abi didn’t need to be told twice. She pulled up on the collective, and the Super Stallion lifted off, the ground falling away beneath them. Below, chaos reigned as the abandoned evacuees fought with brave Marines who’d stayed to keep order as long as they could.

It was a sight she’d not soon forget—but that thought was displaced by Medlock shouting “Down, down! Take us down, now!”

Abi pushed the collective down and felt something give way as the helo dropped onto the pavement. Her imagination, already overactive, brought up an image of civilians underneath her landing gear, but she looked out and noted that they’d at least managed to get clear of the loading area and the remaining evacuees. She could see them breaking past the Marines and started to move in Tempest Two’s direction. She also saw the first signs of Infected coming past the fire station. They only had a few moments, then they needed to be gone.

“Meddler,” she growled, her use of his callsign indicating her displeasure.

“It’s Psych,” Medlock said, and Abi noticed the shadow of helo and cargo passing over her cockpit.

“That’s not right,” Abi said, her stomach twisting. “Moleka, what’s happening on Bill’s bird?”

Before Moleka could respond, the radio crackled to life. “Ghostbird, this is Psych,” Jung’s voice came through clipped and robotic. “We have a situation—passenger turned—attacking passengers—crew chief down!”

His tone of voice chilled Abi. She’d only heard him like this once before, when she’d had an emergency during a check flight, with Bill as her IP.

“Psych!” she barked.

Jung’s Super Stallion lurched violently to the left, veering west, over the bay. The massive helicopter swung around, looking like it was going to come back and land. The sudden movement started the slung cargo to swing. The more they tried to correct, the more unstable the craft became.

“Ghostbird! Going down. Abi, find Phillie. She’s on Port Royal. Tell her—” Bill’s voice finally cracked. “Tell her I love her.”

The helo’s nose dipped dangerously close to the water, and the sling load hit the surface. The impact rocked Tempest One backward, and its tail struck, followed by the entire helo spinning and crashing onto the reef a couple thousand feet offshore.

“Shit! Shit!” Medlock yelled, “We have to rescue them, LT!”

Abi’s heart hammered in her chest; her hands still tightly gripped the controls. “Moleka, status!”

The engineer’s voice crackled through the comms. “Shaken . . . but alive. Gear’s probably in bad shape, though. This hard landing on top of the previous means it’ll likely buckle the next time. We won’t be going anywhere after that until we fix it.”

Abi cursed under her breath, her eyes darting back to Jung’s chopper, now lying canted sideways on the reef. Through the dust and smoke, she saw flashes of movement in the cabin—chaos.

Her radio crackled. “Tempest Two, this is Weber. You need to go. Now. You’re the last run. Get your people out to Yukon and head somewhere safe. Go, Abi, that’s an order.”

“Roger, Kaneohe. Tempest is heading to Yukon,” Abi said, tears in her eyes, and trying to keep a sob out of her voice. “Godspeed, Kaneohe.”

“It’s a different service, but I think it’s appropriate, Ghostbird. ‘These things we do . . .’”

“‘That others may live.’” Abi finished reciting the motto of Air Force Search and Rescue. It was oddly appropriate. “Not my faith, but I’ll wish you, ‘Until Valhalla,’ Colonel.” Abi whispered into the mic, knowing that the channel had already been closed on the other end.

Abi took a deep breath and applied the collective. The Super Stallion groaned as the chopper lifted off the ground, but she could feel the uneven lift and friction as the landing gear scraped the tarmac.

“Come on, come on,” she muttered under her breath, coaxing the bird higher as she watched the mob closing in. The helo shuddered but gained altitude in time for the mob to be blown back by rotor wash.

“We’re up. Clear for now,” Medlock said, voice tight. “Gear’s not going to hold, though. Gonna be trouble later, LT.”

Abi nodded grimly. “We’ll deal with it when we get there, Jimmy.”

The flight to the Yukon felt longer than it was as Abi thought on everything they were leaving behind. Finally, the dark shape of the Yukon appeared on the horizon as the last rays of the sun disappeared under the horizon. The ship was a beacon of hope amid the chaos, but Abi knew their troubles were far from over.

“Yukon, this is Ghostbird. We’re coming in hot—landing gear is compromised. We’re going to need assistance on deck.”

There was a pause, then a gruff voice replied, “Copy that, Ghostbird. We’ll have Marines ready for you. Get down as best you can.”

Abi clenched her jaw, steadying the helicopter as they approached the ship. The deck was crowded, but the Marines kept the landing pad clear. Abi tried to favor the broken gear as they descended the last few feet, but the helo lurched as it collapsed, causing the rotor to catch a section of railing and hurl shrapnel all around the stern of the ship. Emergency systems disengaged the rotor from the engines, but it still had momentum. It continued to strike sparks and send debris flying for a few moments until friction brought the rotor to a halt. She ran through the engine shutdown procedure and the three turboshaft engines fell silent for the first time that day.

For a moment, everything was still.

“Status!” Abi barked; her voice hoarse.

Moleka groaned from the back. “We’re . . . we’re good, LT. Everyone’s alive, but the bird’s not flying again anytime soon.”

Abi exhaled, relief flooding her. They had made it. Barely.

Medlock slumped in his seat, wiping sweat from his brow. “That was too damn close, LT.”

Abi nodded, unbuckling her harness and standing on shaky legs. “We’ll worry about repairs later. Right now, let’s get everyone off this bird and secured.”

Outside, the Marines were already approaching, their faces grim but relieved. Abi could see the exhaustion in their eyes, the same weariness that she felt in her bones. But they were safe, for now.

As she stepped out onto the deck, the reality of their situation hit like a tidal wave. The infected were spreading, the base was lost, and now they were stranded on the Yukon with a damaged helicopter and no way off.

But they were alive. And in this nightmare, that was all that mattered.

#

The Super Stallion’s engines were silent now, and the only sounds were from the wind, waves, and machinery of the ship. The lifeless helo sat, resting unevenly on the deck of the Yukon. The right-side landing gear had collapsed on landing, and the corresponding sponson was crumpled. What little fuel remained had already leaked out and been covered with foam by the ship’s firefighting team.

The bigger problem had been the rotors hitting a section of the stern fencing, sending debris into the fuselage and ship’s superstructure. Abi could feel the ship rocking gently beneath her feet as she surveyed the helicopter’s damage. Ghostbird wasn’t going anywhere soon. The hard landing had twisted the landing gear beyond anything the crew could fix with what they had on hand. They were stuck.

“Damn,” Abi muttered under her breath, running a hand over her sweat-soaked brow. She exchanged a glance with Moleka, who was already checking the tail section.

“It’s bad, LT,” Moleka said, his tone heavy with frustration. “We’ll need a full overhaul to get her flying again. At least a month’s work, maybe more. That’s if we can get the parts.”

Abi nodded, her mind racing. The Yukon was their refuge now, but she could feel the tension all around her. The ship’s deck was packed with evacuees, and while the Marines had managed to maintain order for the time being, the strain was beginning to show. Tempers were flaring, and every glance between people was filled with suspicion—who was infected, who wasn’t?

Who would be the next to turn?

“LT!” Medlock’s voice broke her thoughts. He jogged over from the communications station near the bridge, his face pale. “Captain Knox wants you on the bridge. There’s a problem with Port Royal.”

Abi’s stomach clenched and her head throbbed. It had been a long day of too much stress and too little sleep. The adrenaline of the hard landing was still with her and would take some time to drain away. Her bird was broken, and it sounded like there was a new problem.

Ah well, hope wouldn’t make problems go away, and faith wasn’t about blindly wishing. She had a job to do, and the captain had called for her.

Port Royal was supposed to be Bill’s destination. His wife was aboard, and likely hadn’t gotten the news about her husband yet. Yukon would be struggling to deal with their refugees, and with Bill down and her broken bird, they wouldn’t be going anywhere else.

When she arrived on the bridge, slightly out of breath from the climb, Knox was standing by the wide windows, hands clasped behind his back. His jaw was set, the tension visible even from the doorway.

“Lieutenant Forsyth, we’ve got a situation,” Knox said, his eyes still fixed on the dark silhouette of the Port Royal drifting in the distance.

“What’s happening over there?” Abi asked, already sensing the answer wouldn’t be pleasant.

“Port Royal is in trouble,” Knox said, his voice low but firm. “Infected among the bridge crew. The captain’s dead, and they have a shortage of officers. I need to get a relief crew over there.”

Abi’s stomach twisted. “You want me to fly over and stabilize it? I can’t.”

Knox turned to face her, his expression hard. “Is this another can’t? Or won’t? I know you landed hard, but if Tempest can fly at all, I have a harbor pilot team that can take over for them until they can stabilize.”

Abi just stood there, shaking her head.

“No? Then you are relieved, Lieutenant. Get you copilot up here, or I can call in your wingman. Jung, was it? He’s supposed to be flying missions to Port Royal. He’ll do.”

“No, sir, that’s not it,” she said, barely restraining a sob. “Tempest Two is broken, not flyable. Tempest One is . . .” This time, she let the sob out. “Tempest One went down in the bay. Infected in the cockpit. They had a full load of evacuees and more in a sling load. They crashed, sir. Jung’s not coming; his wife’s over there and doesn’t know.”

Knox stared for a moment, then turned back to the window. He stood stiffly for a moment, then his shoulders sank. He began to shake, then curse. “Damnit. How in the name of God could this happen? I have Marines ready to do a security sweep and a crew to take over the bridge, and I can’t get them there quickly.”

“God didn’t do this, sir,” Abi said quietly.

Knox turned to look back at her, and his gaze softened. “I know, Abi. ‘Sorry for your loss’ doesn’t cut it. There’s been too much loss, and PacFleet said this flu was man-made. Some sick fiend created this. You’re right; it sure as hell isn’t God’s doing.”

“Can you send a tender?”

“I can, but it will take too long. The Port Royal is drifting now. Is there any way Tempest can lift? Even if she gets stuck over there?” Knox waved in the cruiser’s general direction.

“No, sir. She won’t fly without repairs. It’s not just the collapsed landing gear. If we had to, we could prop it up level for take-off. Once. Unfortunately, we struck at an angle and several rotor tips caught the rear fence. We’ll have to inspect before we fly. Blade repair without a shop will take . . . Actually? I don’t know . . . Days? Weeks? Even with minimal damage, the rotor will likely be unbalanced and try to tear itself apart when we get up to speed. She’s stuck right where she is for a long time.”

Knox let out a heavy breath, rubbing his forehead. He was silent for a moment, the weight of the moment hanging between them.

“I’ll have to get them over by boat, then.” He turned to his intraship comm and called the executive officer. “Henry, get them on the tender. Helo is down.”

Abi stepped closer to the window, her eyes narrowing as she looked out over the water. The Port Royal was drifting closer, its movements sluggish but purposeful. Even from here, she could see smoke billowing from the midsection, flames licking at the hull. It was chaos over there.

Then she saw it—the slow, inevitable shift of the ship’s course.

“Sir,” she said quietly, her pulse quickening. “They’re heading straight for us.”

Knox followed her gaze, his face paling as he realized what she had just said. “Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. He grabbed the radio, barking orders to the deck crew. “Prepare for collision! All hands, brace for impact!”

Abi’s heart raced. The Port Royal was drifting toward them, its massive bulk looming in the distance. She hated this—being stuck, unable to do anything but watch as disaster unfolded in front of them. The Port Royal was now too close for any plan of relief. Even if the Super Stallion could fly, it was too late, now.

The ship let out a screeching wail as it closed in, the twisted metal groaning under the strain. The flames flared higher, illuminating the night sky as it bore down on the Yukon.

“They’re going to hit us,” Abi said, her voice steady despite the terror gripping her. “There’s no stopping it now.”

Knox gripped the railing of the bridge, his knuckles white. “Prepare for impact,” he repeated, though this time it was more to himself than anyone else. The bridge crew was scrambling, securing anything that could be thrown by the imminent collision.

Then it happened.

Port Royal collided with the stern of Yukon, a deafening sound of metal on metal as the cruiser tore into the oiler. The impact knocked Abi off her feet, and she hit the deck hard, the wind knocked out of her. The ship shuddered violently, and alarms blared across the deck as the collision sent a shockwave through the entire structure.

“Up!” Knox shouted to the bridge crew, pulling himself up from where he’d been thrown against the railing. He shouted into the radio. “Damage control teams now! Contain fire and assess the damage!”

Abi looked out at the stern. Several small fires had broken out, and the helo was leaning even more heavily; the impact had shifted it dangerously close to the railing.

Port Royal was burning as she pulled away, her bow crumpled, and starting to ride low in the water. The cruiser might well be lost. The fight was on to keep Yukon from going down with her.

Knox turned to her, his face set in a grim line. He nodded back to the scene at the stern: Marines and crew members putting out fires, and Moleka leading a crew to lash down the CH-53E.

“See to your bird, Lieutenant. There’s nothing more we can do. We’ll survive this, or not.”

Abi nodded; her heart heavy. They had escaped disaster by a thread, but the cost had been high. She watched the flames consuming the Port Royal, as the last light of day fled the sky. Even the lights on the distant shore had gone out, leaving only flames.

She could only think of Bill’s last words to his wife.

Now she’d never hear them.

#

Yukon sailed through the dark waters, the soothing hum of its engines given way to the grumble and whine of overstressed engines. The rudder was damaged, as well as one of her two screws. Captain Knox had ordered the bent shaft disconnected from the engine gearing, and now the ponderous bulk was driven by a single screw, with difficulty keeping it on a straight course.

They were alone against the backdrop of the endless Pacific, cut off from the rest of the world, but still afloat. Abi stood on the stern, her broken helicopter behind her, her gaze fixed on the horizon, where the last lights of the Hawaiian Islands had long since disappeared. The silence out here was a welcome reprieve from the chaos they’d left behind.

She felt, more than heard, the silent presence of the captain as he stepped up beside her. She looked to the side, sizing up the man who, for all human intents and purposes, held all their lives in his hands. His face was set in a hard line, but his eyes still held a glimmer of hope. He’d been through hell, too, but still carried himself with the dignity of someone who hadn’t given up.

“French Frigate Shoals,” Knox said, almost to himself, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “It’s not Midway, but it’ll have to do.”

Abi nodded, thoughts drifting as she stared out at the endless expanse of water. They had wanted to make it to Midway, to find some semblance of safety, but the damage to the Yukon made that impossible. The collision with the Port Royal had left them limping, struggling to maintain course. French Frigate Shoals was their best chance now—a desolate outpost far from the infected hordes. A place to shelter, to make repairs, and to figure out what came next.

“It’ll do,” Abi replied, her voice steady. “We’ll make repairs there. It will be hard, and slow, without Port Royal’s hangers, but your ship has a machine shop. We just need time. We’ll beat the blades with rocks and lash the landing gear with palm fronds if we have to. It’s the Polynesian way.”

Knox chuckled softly, though there was no humor in it. “We’re off the radar and sailing into the unknown. ‘Here there be dragons,’ Lieutenant.”

“We’ll survive, sir,” Abi said quietly. “We always do.”

Knox turned to face her, expression softening for the first time since she had boarded his ship. “You believe that?”

Abi met his gaze, her own thoughts drifting back to Kaneohe, to the burning wreckage of Port Royal, to the endless waves of Infected they had barely escaped. She thought of the people they had left behind, the ones they couldn’t save. But she also thought of the survivors—of the Marines, the sailors, and the refugees packed below deck, clinging to the hope that this wasn’t the end.

“I do,” Abi said firmly. “The Hawaiian people . . . they’re resilient. We’re resilient. I’m not native, but I grew up here, and these people are descended from explorers—people who crossed the entire Pacific Ocean with nothing but the stars to guide them. They’ll survive . . . We’ll survive. We must have faith, sir.”

Knox smiled faintly; the weight of their shared losses momentarily lifted by her words. “Polynesian explorers, huh? I suppose we’re following in their footsteps now.”

Abi nodded. “We’ll do what they did—navigate the unknown, find new horizons. And one day, we’ll go back. Hawaii will still be there, and when it’s safe, we’ll return.”

Knox looked out over the water again, his eyes thoughtful. “You think Hawaii can recover from all this?”

Abi’s chest tightened at the thought of the islands—so full of life, now overrun with the infected. But deep down, she believed in the strength of the people, the land. “Hawaii is more than just a place. It’s the people. They’ll survive. They’ll rebuild, one day. The islands have been through worse.”

Knox didn’t say anything for a moment, but she could see the hope flicker in his eyes. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. The Yukon wasn’t just a ship—it was a symbol of their survival, of the determination that had carried them through everything. And as long as it stayed afloat, so would they.

Knox turned to go back to the bridge and deal with the next crisis. “I like your optimism, Lieutenant,” he said quietly. “We could use more of that.”

Abi stayed where she was, standing just inside the chain and rope that had replaced the damaged stern fence. She knew it wasn’t just optimism. It was faith.

“You really believe that? That faith nonsense?” Jimmy said from the darkness. He was sitting on the open ramp of the Super Stallion. It couldn’t be closed until they powered it up, and they couldn’t even start the APU until they replaced the damaged fuel and hydraulic lines in the starboard sponson.

“I do—and it’s not nonsense. Faith isn’t blind. It’s not a gleeful ignorance of the facts, nor an unreasoning optimism. Faith is picking yourself up, grabbing your tools, and making your future with the belief that it will benefit someone, some place, even if we ourselves won’t be the beneficiaries. Faith is motivation, not wishful thinking. It is on us to take the situation God handed us and honor Him with our attitude and outlook. Faith may sometimes be about hardship, suffering, and anguish, but it’s also about determination and confidence that you can make a difference.”

Abi looked up at the stars, imagining her father doing the same—somewhere. They’d always shared a love of the night sky, and he’d been so disappointed that she hadn’t followed his dream of science and research.

“We’ll make it, Dad” she repeated softly to herself. “Please do the same . . . and have faith.”

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Robert E. Hampson, Ph.D., turns science fiction into science in his day job, and puts the science into science fiction in his spare time. He has consulted for more than a dozen SF writers, assisting in the (fictional) creation of future medicine, brain computer interfaces, unusual diseases, alien intelligence, novel brain diseases (and the medical nanites to cure them), exotic toxins, and brain effects of a zombie virus. His science writing ranges from fictional depiction of real science and the mysteries of the brain to surviving the apocalypse or living in space. His recent forays into short fiction have appeared in the U.S. Army Small Wars Journal (TRADOC Mad Science Writing Contest), Science Fiction by Scientists (Springer), Black Tide Rising anthologies (Baen), and Four Horsemen Universe (Chris Kennedy Publishing). Some of his prior fiction and nonfiction appeared under the pseudonym Tedd Roberts. Dr. Hampson is a professor of physiology/pharmacology and neurology with more than thirty-five years' experience in animal neuroscience and human neurology. His professional work includes more than 100 peer-reviewed research articles ranging from the pharmacology of memory to the effects of radiation on the brain—and most recently, the first report of a "neural prosthetic" to restore human memory using the brain's own neural codes. He is a member of the SIGMA Forum and the Science and Entertainment Exchange—a service of the National Academy of Sciences. He is married with two grown sons and lives outside Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Of Zombies, Astronauts, and Paradise:

The Hard Science Fiction of Across an Ocean of Stars

by Robert E. Hampson

Twelve years ago, in the days when I wrote under the pseudonym “Tedd Roberts” I wrote a nonfiction article for Baen entitled “A Terrible Thing to Lose—Zombie Science and Science Fiction in John Ringo’s Under a Graveyard Sky.” John had decided to write a zombie story his way; which meant that the zombies were believable based on current day events, science, politics, and lacked the “mystical” nature of zombies popular in fiction up until that point.

Keep in mind that 28 Days Later was a relatively obscure film in 2002, not gaining a lot of popular attention until the late ‘oughts, which is about when I Am Legend came out. The Walking Dead didn’t even have a pilot until late 2010. So, when John started writing Under a Graveyard Sky in 2011(-ish), the genre of “virus zombies” wasn’t that well known. Mind you, I’m not ignoring Resident Evil, but that movie went so far into mutant monsters, rather than zombies, that it’s not really fair to class the game and movies with the others.

I had been corresponding with John for about five years by that point. He’d consulted with me on The Last Centurion and a few elements of the Live Free or Die series, but this was the one in which John specifically sought out my neuroscience expertise. One night in 2011, John and I spent a couple hours on a teleconference call—Skype, I believe. After much giggling and scheming, I had coached him through how a virus would have to act on the brain in order to rob a human of all higher brain functions, leaving only rage and violence.

In exchange, John made me a target.

No, he didn’t redshirt me—not explicitly—but he managed to do so with the story, rather than in it. In Under a Graveyard Sky, there is a young “basement biologist” who figured out the dual RNA/DNA-expressing virus, and is sought after as a subject matter expert. The FBI knocks down the kid’s door and arrests him, using the logic that a subject matter expert is also a suspect!

So, what did John do, given that story element? Acknowledge me in the front of the book as teaching him everything he needed to know about zombie virus effects on the brain! That way, if there ever is a viral zombie plague, the FBI is likely to come find me first.

Gee, thanks, John.

The thing is, we treated the zombie apocalypse as hard science fiction, and that’s what I’ve done with Across an Ocean of Stars. To me, hard SF means that if it is possible for a reader to look up something from the story (i.e., it actually exists in the present day), then that reader should encounter the same, accurate (as possible) information as in the story.

Then again, that almost backfired on us. John and his editor Gary Poole like to tell the story of an alpha reader who works in international disease research and was shocked by the virus distribution method originally written for Under a Graveyard Sky. All I will say is that we had come up with something the “experts” hadn’t considered—and it scared them. The method got changed for publication, and no, I’m not telling what the original method was (see FBI risk above!).

“Now that’s hard science fiction with a vengeance!” —Publishers Weekly, about my novel, The Moon and the Desert

The Science of Zombies

[For this next part, I am going to reiterate some points made in the 2013 Baen website article.]

To a psychologist, zombies represent fear of “the other”—the foreign, even alien, presence that steals away our home and family; or that zombies represent fear of death or ending. On the other hand, to a “prepper” (and the CDC!) preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse represents the preparation for any disaster, natural or man-made. To a sociologist, storylines that involve preparing to defend against the loss of all we hold dear, represent uncertain times that threaten jobs, homes and our very lives.

Whatever the appeal, zombies and the zombie apocalypse are prevalent in modern fiction—from Max Brooks’ World War Z (and the movie of the same name, but derivative story) to the popular TV show The Walking Dead. The modern zombie story/zombie movie genre owes a lot to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead—but it can easily be argued that Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein founded the concept of the metaphysically reanimated corpse. In Baen’s own fiction, Larry Corriea’s Monster Hunter International novels invoke (and dispatch) zombies by the hundreds and thousands. In fact, the image of seasoned Monster Hunter Earl Harbinger chopping and puréeing zombies through use of industrial snow-clearing machinery has led to a popular convention panel, “Messiest Ways to Kill Zombies.”

It is notable that many present-day zombie stories (Monster Hunter International, excepted) have departed from the Haitian voodoo concept of magical reanimated corpses and skeletons. Instead, the modern zombie story often focuses on a bacterial or viral source of infection, and that infection can either reanimate a corpse, or transform a living human into a ravenous, brainless creature. Such is the premise of Ringo’s Under a Graveyard Sky. I experimented with this theme myself in “Neural Alchemist,” a short story published in Science Fiction by Scientists (Springer, 2017) with the zombieism resulting from a stem cell infection (strangely prophetic given my recent move to a tissue engineering/stem cell institute).

However, there are several ways to establish a scientific basis for zombies. We’ll first set the stage by looking at different types of zombies as represented in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

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Taxonomy—Types of Zombies

In movies and novels, zombies are either mindless horde animated by evil magic, or “animalistic sub humans created by evil technology.” Zombies in TV film and literature fall into approximately 4 categories with some overlap between them:

1. Zombies are magically animated dead creatures

2. Zombies are dead creatures that have been brought back to life through a combination of science and/or mysticism;

3. Zombies are essentially living creatures that have been infected with a disease, virus or spell which turns them into a basically dead creature.

4. Zombies are living creatures that are “hag-ridden” by parasites that over-ride the host’s consciousness and take control of the body.

The current pop-culture concept of insatiably hungry killing machines is a recent development in literature and can largely be attributed to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). This movie clearly falls into Category One above. In this instance, the zombies are corpses which have been reanimated; however, there is a considerable element of the “ghoul”—a creature which may or may not be dead, but which inhabits graveyards and eats human flesh. In contrast, the classic monster, Frankenstein is basically a zombie, in that it is composed of cadaver parts and animated by a mad scientist, but lacks the modern concepts of hunting and feeding on humans. Consider, for example, the humorous zombies of Piers Anthony’s Xanth series: The Zombie Master is a human sorcerer who reanimates corpses as servants. The corpses are constantly losing parts, and present no real danger to humans, but only one individual can repair or even create zombies in the first place.

The hybrid crossover produced by Romero in Night of the Living Dead is very important to the more modern notion of a zombie craving brains or feeding off of human flesh. The Resident Evil video games and movies feature Category Two zombies which are dead humans brought back to life after being infected with a virus. Max Brooks’s World War Z, The Walking Dead, and of course the “Infected” of Ringo’s Under a Graveyard Sky are examples of Category Three, in which the victims of the mysterious virus first fall into a fever or coma and seemingly “recover” hours later, but as a mindless, virtually unkillable creatures (largely because they feel no pain, and are thus not stopped until they can no longer move). Likewise, Category Four zombies need not start out as corpses—they may be perfectly healthy humans prior to infestation—but the sentient, infesting agent such as The Flood in the game Halo, takes over the bodily functions and effectively kills the body and/or human consciousness. In many ways, Category Four zombies are a variation of Category Three except for the implication that rather than a virus, the infection is by a symbiote or parasite that has its own consciousness (e.g., Robert A. Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters, or Larry Niven’s “Night on Mispec Moor”).

A feature of many zombie stories both in film and print is that the “zombie infection” is spread by a bite, causing crossover between different categories of zombies, as in the Will Smith movie I Am Legend in which it’s not clear whether the zombies were precisely dead creatures reanimated or living creatures infected with the zombie virus. Of course, there’s always fun movies such as Bruce Campbell’s Army of Darkness, which to be honest, is not really a zombie movie, since the primary creatures are reanimated skeletons (of the Ray Harryhausen Jason and the Argonauts style) and not corpses per se.

So, what makes a zombie (scientifically speaking)? In the particularly Haitian voodoo mythology, voodoo priests could turn living humans into mindless servants through their magic, which in reality consisted of a combination of pharmaceuticals, which suppressed higher thought functions. One of the chemicals used, traditionally, was tetrodotoxin or TTX. TTX is well known in neuroscience: it is a chemical which blocks sodium channels, preventing the depolarizing sodium entry into neurons necessary for the formation of an action potential. In the presence of tetrodotoxin, neurons are unable to receive and transmit the neural signals which underlie information processing of the brain. TTX is an extract from puffer fish, the same fish used in the risky Japanese dish known as fugu. The chef must take great care not to break the poison gland, which contains the TTX, and would kill anyone who consumes the dish. On the other hand, just the smallest amount of TTX will cause a slight numbness to the tongue and lips and give the sensation of daring and risk to aficionados. A dosage high enough will block all nervous system and muscle activity, while moderate doses will block some brain activity, but not all. The use of neurotoxins is hardly unknown, considering that the neuromuscular blocker curare was first discovered in use by South American native tribes on their blowgun darts to disable large prey. So it is not unheard of that primitive medicine and ritual may very well have developed the use of tetrodotoxin as a medicine for suppressing violent and aggressive behaviors. It is only a small step from such use to much more serious cases of deliberately suppressing higher mental function, leading to legends of the Voodoo zombies who functioned as slaves for their evil masters.

About ten to fifteen years ago, there were urban legends of people visiting other countries (typically South America or Southeast Asia) who discovered they’d lost several days to amnesia. During this time, they . . . got robbed, robbed banks, got into bar fights, assaulted others or were assaulted themselves . . . and generally did things they would never do on their own. Per the legend, the individuals walked through a slight cloud of dust, and lost awareness soon after. The “cloud of dust” was supposedly pollen or spores from a “Solanum” plant (sic), or powdered “borrachero” shrub flowers, yielding “Devil’s Breath,” a form of scopolamine. The truth is, that the ingestion of scopolamine in this manner is unlikely to act as described, leading many to believe that this urban legend is actually based on the stories of Voodoo zombies.

On the other hand, there are a number of other possibilities from a scientific perspective for the classical “mindless, reanimated dead.” Aside from the fantastical gimmick of magical reanimation, science fiction authors have toyed with the idea of zombies created by alien organisms, viruses, stem cells, and nanomachines. The primary requirement is simply a way to provide energy (molecules) to muscle and nerve cells, and trigger their normal functions. The energy doesn’t even have to be glucose and oxygen: anything that can deliver molecules with high-energy bonds which can be consumed to provide mitochondrial energy would suffice.

The most intriguing notion comes from recent studies with stem cells. As medical research increasingly looks to the possibilities of stem cell therapies for tissue regeneration and growth, one question that is often asked is what will happen if the stem cells begin to grow in a manner that was not planned for? While the most obvious result would be cancerous tissue, another possibility is that stem cells could result in a restoration of dead, necrotic tissue. If enough of this tissue is restored to a near living state, would this not make zombies? Still, the problem is one of reanimation of the brain tissue, but even that seems to be yielded to modern medical findings of patients “brought back to life” after many hours as long as the body and brain are kept very cold (but not frozen) and well oxygenated.

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Zombie Behavior

It is an interesting contradiction in fictional literature that zombies are essentially brainless, yet the only way to effectively defeat a zombie is to destroy the head and brain. Reanimation of neural tissue should require the ability to not just provide glucose, oxygen and other essential nutrients to the neural tissue, but also a way to restore the electrochemical activity. Perhaps it is most telling that what we think of as memory and personality is primarily the result of the synaptic connections that are neurons make with each other. When an organism is killed, the once-living cells undergo a process of necrosis. Essentially what that means for our zombies is that the cells no longer have intact intracellular mechanisms, nor do they have the same connections between cells. If we extend this now to the brains of humans, we begin to understand the very soon after death the synaptic connections between neurons would break down. With the loss of synaptic connections, the knowledge, skills, memory, and personality of that human would also be lost. Thus, if we reanimate the body, the “mind” would still not be functioning. Nonetheless, control of the muscles which allow the zombie to moving walk would still reside in spinal cord and brain stem with some residual signal coming from the motor cortex.

Thus, the idea that zombies represent some form of reanimated corpse necessarily brings with it the idea that brain function could or would not be restored, and reanimated corpses would be able to do little else than lurch and moan. On the other hand, transfer of pharmacological or infections agents could very well affect living humans to the point that they exhibit the same characteristics as the living dead.

What I find most amazing about reader comments on Under a Graveyard Sky were the ones claiming that a “mere infection” couldn’t result in the animalistic, primitive behavior of the Infected. That complaint usually amounted to “nothing would change the behavior/personality so radically and not kill the subject.”

My response at the time was: “Really? Based on what science?” I invite those same readers to investigate the case of Phineas Gage who had extensive frontal lobe damage—and walked away under his own power to the medical station (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-Gage-Neurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html). There are many reports of people walking around with head injuries—maybe not walking well—but the myth of the “instant off switch” in the brain is just that, a myth.

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Spreading the Disease

Communicating the zombie condition from one individual to the next is quite frequently central to the zombie story—although not strictly essential. While arguably not “zombie” stories, any “mummy” tale is essentially a Category One zombie produced by a mystical curse. In particular, with mystical/magical zombies, the originals must be cursed or subject to mystic forces, even if the subsequent spread is via scratch, bite or simple contact. Most zombie stories, however, treat the “zombie curse” as a simple disease, even if we never learn much about the infectious agent. In the Will Smith version of the movie I Am Legend (from a 1954 book of the same name, written by Richard Matheson) the infectious agent is a virus supposedly developed to cure cancer. In Shaun of the Dead, the agent is an extraterrestrial virus, and in Under a Graveyard Sky, it is a unique “dual-expressing” virus. As is rather typical for John Ringo, he treats us to considerably more background on the origins of the “Infected” in his novels; thus, we have a bit more to work with when it comes to real science ideas regarding zombies.

Most readers will have no problem with the concept of an infection spreading from person-to-person via contact. However, the remaining criticisms of the approach amount to one of two issues: (1) how to get the disease to spread rapidly enough to reach epidemic (infecting people faster than it can be treated) or even “pandemic” status (epidemics not limited to a single location), and (2) why should a disease affect behavior? We already addressed issue #2 in the previous section, so we’ll concentrate on concentrate on transmission of the disease in this section. Infectious diseases can affect behavior if either the infectious agent directly affects the cells of the brain, or if the infectious agent produces a toxin. Examples of the former include rabies virus or the bacteria (spirochetes) which cause syphilis and Lyme disease.

Bacterial or mold toxins (such as the ergot alkaloid Lysergic acid—similar to LSD) can alter behavior by substituting for normal chemical “neurotransmitters” of the brain. Bacteria and molds can easily spread through the air, water, food and via contact on surfaces, but they are not very good at spreading from person-to-person. The best means to spread infection rapidly is by virus, and the best way to spread a viral infection to a large number of people at the same time is via airborne viruses such as the ones that cause various forms of flu. Viruses that work best for spreading via direct contact (especially by blood or saliva) are blood-borne. Further, while rabies can affect the brain, the viruses with the greatest affinity for infecting brain tissue are the viruses associated with herpes, smallpox, chicken pox, and shingles. Unfortunately for our purpose, those viruses are structurally very different from either rabies or most airborne viruses. Influenza viruses are “RNA viruses” meaning that the infection really consists of a small piece of RNA-based genetic code that enters a host cell and starts making the components of more viruses. Herpes-Like viruses are “DNA” viruses in which the genetic code uses the normal cellular machinery in order to replicate, since they “hide” in normally present genes of the cell.

As a society, we have become painfully aware of issues with DNA and RNA in this post-COVID world, even though much misinformation remains. There are those who will claim that any insertion of RNA (or DNA) via vaccination is hazardous, and if a “real zombie apocalypse” occurs, my money will be on an infectious agent delivering a DNA payload.

To understand why this is important, consider how DNA and RNA normally operate: Normal cell function is to use DNA as a master copy if it were a template. DNA consists of two strands, and each strand is a mirror image. When DNA is “copied” into RNA, it can form two new strands—a “positive” copy, and a “negative” copy (from the mirror image strand). The positive RNA contains the actual code for making proteins, while the negative RNA likely has no function. Positive RNA is then used as the template for assembling whatever a living cell requires. When a DNA virus such as Varicella (chicken pox) infects a cell, the viral DNA substitutes for normally present DNA, and fools the cell into making more viruses instead of healthy cell parts. There is some new evidence that the complete code of human genes actually contains inactive pieces that were picked up from some prehistoric viruses! With an RNA virus such as West Nile, the virus contains a single strand of positive RNA that can be immediately used to make more virus copies. However, viruses such as Influenza A (the HxNx flu viruses) have negative RNA that has to be copied into a positive RNA strand before it can start making more virus. Retroviruses such as HIV (AIDS virus) have both strands of RNA, and use them to reverse-engineer the original DNA and insert into the genes of a cell (like those prehistoric viruses above). Negative RNA viruses and retroviruses can only make their copies because the respective viruses also carry along an enzyme called “transcriptase” which makes the positive RNA, or “reverse transcriptase” which makes DNA.

Sound familiar?

The twist developed from Under a Graveyard Sky and the rest of the Black Tide Rising (BTR) universe is that the Haole Flu virus contains both DNA and RNA. The RNA virus, H7D3, is a typical influenza virus, and is spread much the same way as cold or flu. The DNA payload manifests after the “flu” runs its course. The new virus, D4T3 (in my terminology) expresses the DNA payload in the blood which infects the prefrontal lobes of the brain (and hence the higher cognitive functions). Since this is essentially a new virus carried in the blood (and saliva) it is transferred via bites or open wounds, and extremely hard to detect or treat until it has already robbed the individual of their humanity.

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Zombie Fuel

Unlike many of the existing zombie tropes, Black Tide Rising “Infected”[1] don’t crave brains.

They eat . . . food.

In fact, they eat whatever food is available, and drink whatever water is available. When they don’t have food and water available, they go into “torpor,” a state of reduced activity and metabolism. They also eat and drink the nastiest, most contaminated stuff available, such that BTR zombies can survive under many conditions that humans would or could not. The idea that a “rage zombie” doesn’t feel fear, pain, or injury, and wouldn’t be stopped by mild illness, is a standard of the genre, and can be used to good effect in storytelling.

BTR zombies do not crave brains. Brains are just a “food of convenience” since bashing a human over the head repeatedly will expose the brains, but also skin, muscle, bone (and bone marrow), and blood.

BTR zombies will eat (and drink) anything!

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Curing Zombies

Most protagonists in a zombie story would rightfully argue that the only way to truly cure a zombie . . .  is to kill the host, thereby also destroying the disease. Yet no matter whether we hypothesize a mystical or disease source for the zombie “curse” (and provided the victims are actually alive, and not walking dead), there should be some means to “cure” those zombies. If the zombie condition is indeed a magical curse, finding and eliminating the source of that curse should be sufficient to restore the zombie to humanity. Surprisingly, the scientific approach to a zombie “disease” starts much the same way, although it will require additional steps to apply and spread that cure.

The best way to cure or prevent any disease is to let the human immune system take care of the job for you. When bacteria, viruses or alien organisms invade the human body, it forms antibodies that assist in destroying the foreign tissue. Often, however, it can be a race between creating enough antibodies to cure the infection before the foreign material replicates enough to seriously sicken the host. Thus, a mechanism is required to produce antibodies prior to infection—in other words, a vaccine.

I always come back to Niven’s “Night on Mispec Moor” at this point. His “broad spectrum cure” was a combination antibiotic, antiviral, and antifungal. Spraying it on the reanimated battlefield corpses killed the mysterious agent that provided the reanimation. Of course, that all presupposes that (A) one doesn’t run out of the curative agent, and (B) that the cure works fast enough to keep oneself from being overwhelmed. A vaccine is not an acute treatment, and even in Under a Graveyard Sky, Faith needed a large dose, and more frequently than a simple vaccination. The presumed mechanism was that more vaccine provided more of the inactivated virus to prompt more (and faster) antibody production. Those were especially needed to prevent the RNA virus from converting to the DNA form, and keeping the disease in the “really bad flu” form. This is also (presumably) the mechanism by which natural immunity allowed a victim to resist the bloodborne phase, as I have included for a few rare individuals in Across an Ocean of Stars.

A vaccine alone can really only stop progression or transmission of the disease, it doesn’t actually cure it, and a general trope of the zombie apocalypse genre is that zombieism isn’t curable. That’s true in the Black Tide Rising universe, too. Curing the infection is possible—we see it play out in the story. Unfortunately, curing the virus cannot reverse the damage that has already occurred. The best we can do is render the zombies non-infectious.

However, that brings up something unique to the BTR universe—beta Infecteds. John postulated that the rage exhibited by the Infected requires massive output of the adrenal cortex and autonomic nervous system. What would happen if an individual suffered from adrenal insufficiency? If the rage zombie form is an “alpha,” betas would be those without the rage and aggression, but still without higher cognitive functions. John wrote of Faith’s first encounter with a beta in Strands of Sorrow, and again in the short story “The Meaning of Freedom” in the anthology Black Tide Rising. While the actual mechanism of the disease course was never specified, we may speculate that adrenal insufficiency allowed enough time for the body’s natural immunity to combat the virus, but only after the cognitive damage was done.

Betas present some interesting problems for the survivors . . . and I’ll come back to the subject later.

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Defeating Zombies

No description of “curing” a zombie plague would be complete without at least a passing discussion of defeating and killing zombies in combat. The best answer I can give to “how”—is from as far away as possible. Isolating from contact—what medical professionals call “universal precautions” should be the first “realistic” preparation for combat. Any zombie hunter should be very careful not to become a victim themselves.

The next step involves knowing exactly which “injuries” will stop a particular type of zombie. It has always amused me that the traditional attack on “undead” creatures, is always to go for portions of the body that are supposedly lacking or nonfunctional—the brain in zombies, the heart in vampires. Given a mystical zombie curse, the only defense is typically to render the zombie into small enough pieces that it is no longer a threat. For reanimated corpses, it makes as much sense to target the brain as any other body part, since the reanimation force likely substitutes for brain activity—separate that from the rest of the body and again, it becomes no threat to the Hunter.

For “living” zombies and infected, brain and heart become the major targets, since the lack of higher thought processes means that pain or any lesser injury would not interrupt the zombie attack. Once the brain or heart are severely disrupted, the zombie should finally cease the attack, unless one is very, very unlucky (or in a Larry Correia novel). In the process, though, a good hunter remembers to use a caliber sufficient to incapacitate the Infected—a lesson largely lost on Max Brooks when he incorrectly assumed in World War Z that a mere .22 caliber round would penetrate the head from more than a few feet away. Hunters! Be like Faith Smith and insist on large caliber ammo!

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Zombies in Paradise

Part science, part fiction.

I’ve been accused of writing in many different styles and genres, but what comes most naturally to me is a blend of science fiction and hard science. That stems from the fact that I am a scientist with a touch of engineering experience. The best hard science fiction seems to include exactly those elements: solid science, a touch of engineering, and more.

I also believe that if some element of the story is real or based on reality—particularly scientific reality—then it is my responsibility as a writer to ensure its accuracy. At the same time, a purely scientific treatise would have little to no appeal to most science fiction readers. The science, therefore, must blend seamlessly with the story. To do it right, it needs to be a compelling story, but the science, even if it doesn’t drive the plot, must remain an important component.

In Across an Ocean of Stars, the story actually began with the concept of beta Infected, and several questions raised by John Ringo. He had introduced a beta-form of Infected for Strands of Sorrow and in his short story “The Meaning of Freedom” for the Black Tide Rising anthology. John wondered if “betas” could be trained for rudimentary tasks such as cleaning, sweeping, agriculture, or handling self-maintenance problems—essentially to aid in the rebuilding of civilization. Fortunately, betas (even lacking higher reasoning) could assist humanity in the task—couldn’t they?

Could betas provide a workforce in a world severely depleted of functioning humans?

There was a problem with the concept, though. Betas couldn’t protect their own interests. Without consent, would using betas be any different from slavery? In 2016, at LibertyCon, the authors of stories in the original Black Tide Rising anthology had a roundtable discussion about the stories. John raised the question about what to do (or could be done) with the betas. I began to get an idea of how one might structure a society around betas. My wife and I had recently toured the former leper colony at Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii. The island had once hosted a leper colony administered by Father Damien Veuster, a Belgian priest of the Catholic Church assigned to Kalaupapa to minister to the lepers. Father Damien helped bring order and community to the once lawless colony, until he, too, succumbed to Hansen’s disease.

Perhaps it was the similarity in between my name and that of the disease, perhaps it was simply that the memory of the tour was recent, but I got a faraway look (I was later asked what had captured my attention), and had the very first inkling of a story in which a Father Damien-like character man took it upon himself to care for and minister to the betas, and build a community in which those individuals would not be slaves, but rather free persons.

The genesis of the idea lingered in my mind. Initially, I had planned for it to be a short story title “Go Tell It on The Mountain”, possibly for submission to the second BTR anthology. However, the concept grew beyond the confines of a short story and ultimately became a novel. The story’s premise involved survivors learning to adapt in the aftermath of a catastrophe, relying on practical skills rather than technology, which was often lost or inaccessible.

My wife and I travel regularly to Hawaii, and I’ve become fascinated by the history. Hawaiians are Polynesians—descended from voyagers and explorers—and come from a rich history of sustainable practices. In fact, there are many organizations and companies scattered throughout the islands that promote preservation and revival of cultural heritage, such as the Kualoa Ranch (Oahu), Parker Ranch (Hawaii Island), and Polynesian Cultural Center (Oahu). It seemed likely to me that some vestige of those groups would likely endure an apocalypse.

Again, these thoughts factored into the story, although it would take me many years to develop my writing habits and fully flesh it out. Still, it grew way beyond the beta colony/Father Damien story into a novel. I discussed the ideas with John Ringo a few times, and then pitched the idea to Toni Weisskopf after The Moon and the Desert.

The initial version, as pitched, differed considerably from the version I submitted, and that differs quite a bit from the finished product. As I continued to spin ideas for post-apocalyptic Hawaii, and discover more of the islands, the concept grew larger than (I thought) would fit a single book. One of the casualties was the original short story—not lost, just consigned to a possible second volume. Toni convinced me that the story needed a better sense of closure, and the best piece of closure was, “Go Tell It on The Mountain.”

I’ll save that for a bit, though, because it became much more than a simple short story, but embodies the heart of Across an Ocean of Stars.

Part One: Explorer—the Astronaut Simulation

Around the time I developed the original premise for Ocean, I had been reviewing proposals for several government and foundation funding agencies. One of these funded research related to outer space and space travel. During this process, I encountered a description of a space habitat simulation called Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, HI-SEAS. It’s a Mars-and-Moon-simulated habitat located high on the slopes of Mauna Loa. This simulation has hosted missions of four to twelve months, and is configured to provide an environment to not only mimic the confines of a spacecraft or lunar/Martian habitat, but allow the “simunauts” (in NASA-speak) to experience an otherworldly environment outside their habitat domes.

This inspired the idea of a simulated astronaut experience, where participants undergo a communication blackout, only to discover that a zombie apocalypse has occurred outside. This concept became the foundation of a story in which a long-duration space simulation transformed into a post-apocalyptic survival tale.

In creating the fictional habitat for my story, I drew on real-world examples such as Biosphere 2, MARS500, and HI-SEAS. Biosphere [2] was not specifically a space simulation but rather a study of closed ecosystems. The habitat included plants to provide food and fresh air, and replicated a complete ecosphere with air, water, soil, plants, and recycling, with limited small animals and insects. While not a successful experiment in humans living in an isolated environment, it has taught many important lessons in the biological configuration of a closed-system. A more successful habitat simulation was MARS500, which simulated a 520-day Mars mission, complete with separate chambers mimicking the spacecraft, surface habitat, and surface excursions. HI-SEAS specifically added experiences in working outside the dome on the high-elevation volcanic terrain which, frankly, looks like it belongs on another planet.

For my fictional Hawaii Island Space Long-Orbit Planetary Exploration, HI-SLOPE, I took some creative liberties. First, I moved it to the slopes of Mauna Kea, increased the elevation by 2,000 feet, and placed the whole facility inside a cinder cone so that the 25 inhabitants would not have any visual reminder of being on Earth. With a reversed day-night schedule, they would only see the night sky, allowing the HI-SLOPE founders to program a full simulation of the isolation and mishaps that might occur during a three-year mission to Mars or the asteroids.

Many of the concepts came from discussions with other reviewers and researchers about the existing space simulation experiments, and what experiments those researchers would run if such a facility were available (with volunteers to inhabit it!). I was also able to draw on studies of high elevation on human physiology, the dynamics of interpersonal relationships in closed environments . . . and even a bit of research on organic decay in the cold, dry air above 9,000 feet. These details shaped the setting and characters.

People often ask me if there’s a little bit of myself in Hamilton Forsyth. After all, Hamilton might be a derivation of Hampson, and I live in Forsyth County. The first part of my answer is that no, I wouldn’t want to be a psychologist. Second, I use a random name generator for many of my character names (unless I’m tuckerizing and redshirting—and there’s a bunch in there). Third, I’d like to think I’m a bit less pedantic and dysfunctional and volatile than Ham. Still, I can’t deny some personal influences based on the science.

One of my only regrets is that, despite several visits to Hawaii, I’ve never made it to the summit of Mauna Kea to see the telescopes firsthand. I’ve been to the Maunakea Visitor Information Station at 9,200 feet elevation, and found out how thin the air was. It’s about 75 percent of sea level pressure, and certainly demands respect! For the summit, I relied on literature, websites, and satellite images. Air pressure is down to 60 percent of sea level at the summit, and not for the faint of heart (literally).

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Part Two: Seafarer—From Ni’ihau to Molokai

The past several years, my wife and I have taken day-trip tours of Kauai. Many of the small details of location, harbors, coffee plantations, etc. come from those trips. There’s not much to add to the “hard science” aspects of Kauai except to reassure readers that both the Kauai Coffee Company and noni fruit are real. I’m a big fan of KCC, and they produce 50 percent of the coffee shipped from Hawaii. Given that Hawaii is also the only state in the U.S. producing coffee for commercial sale and export, that makes KCC responsible for 50 percent of U.S. domestic coffee production! They are an eco-friendly enterprise, and they lean toward propane and alcohol fuels to keep pollutants down, so there is some hope for continued operation after the Fall (as long as they can scavenge propane or have it sent over from Barber’s Point). They really are as big as stated in the book!

Ni’ihau is called The Secret Island, and modern myth says it is reserved for native Hawaiians to practice a return to their cultural heritage . . .

Nope. Sorry. It’s a privately-owned island, and the only folks who live there are members of the Robinson family (or their guests). It really doesn’t have farm land. In 1940-1941, large ruts were plowed across the limited farmland so that foreign planes couldn’t use the fields as a staging area for an attack on Pearl Harbor—yes, they were expecting it, just not exactly when it happened. A Japanese Zero even crashed there, and the remains are in the Pacific Aviation Museum on Oahu.

The island is largely overgrown, with only the family houses visible. There does not appear to be any significant agriculture on the island (as evidenced by satellite imagery).

The LCM-8’s are real, and visible on Google. For that matter, all ships and ship types are real . . . just maybe not at the exact time and place of the story. The ketch and Monte Fino can be seen in images of Ko Olina harbor, and I even saw the ketch sailing off of Waikiki in May 2024. I took some liberties with the trimaran, though. There’s one in Ko Olina now, but it wasn’t built until 2020. The Kuroda, LSV-7, was in pictures of Kawaihae Harbor in 2017, and I have a picture of the USNS Yukon in Pearl Harbor circa 2013. There’s reference to an odd houseboat used by the Kauai clearance teams off Hanapepe that had a slightly bigger role in the story, but which was edited out for story flow. It’s an Orsos Island (look it up), a really odd craft intended for floating resorts. It was an interesting footnote, but ultimately didn’t serve the plot.

Off Kaena Point and around Oahu, a few place and business names were changed, but again, they all exist, even the “submarine” and its tugboat. Which brings me to the sea battle—and back to hard SF. I’m not great at describing fight scenes and combat. Mostly I try to write the impact of battle on the POV character, rather than the battle itself. For the pirate battle though, I had to draw out the positions of the ships, create side-elevation diagrams, and try to figure out who could see what from which angle. For the rest, I trusted in fog-of-war. James Young and Phil Wohlrab were a great help with the weaponry of the pirate battle.

James really did tell me he swam like a rock.

For Pearl Harbor, I wanted an incident that would keep people out of the harbor proper, some explosion or mishap that would contaminate the area, without falling on the old trope of “reactor meltdown” (which wouldn’t happen). Michael “Sub Dude” Gants clued me in on the resin exchange, and I confirmed the details with my submarine subject matter experts.

Details and sightlines in Pearl Harbor were confirmed on the basis of “been there, saw that.” May 2024, I had the opportunity to tour the control tower on Ford Island at the Pacific Aviation Museum, and was able to see and measure those sight lines and obstacles. By the way, that’s a beautiful view, and the docent’s narration of the events of Dec. 7, 1941, while looking out over the harbor, gave me goose bumps!

Hurricanes really are rare in the Hawaiian Islands. The water conditions aren’t uniform, and the currents are wrong to bring a storm directly over the islands as described. However, island landfalls occur every 10 years or so. Tropical Storm Iselle grazed the southern tip of Hawaii (island) in 2014; Hurricanes Linda (2021) and Darby (2022) followed tracks similar to my fictional storm, but were weakening tropical storms by the time they reached the islands. Surprisingly, there were three tropical cyclones aimed at Hawaii in the summer of 2024, but only the first one, Hurricane Hone, made it to the islands. It passed south of Hawaii while it was still strengthening to Category 1, and the Big Island was affected by wind, rain, and high surf.

The really big hurricane news was Iniki in 1992. It directly hit Kauai, due to an abrupt northward turn two days prior to landfall. The storm had formed well to the east of the island chain, and appeared set to pass more than 300 miles south of the Big Island (as a Cat 1). However, the storm turned abruptly north and strengthened, striking the west coast of Kauai two days later. The northward track, passing west of the islands is common for “Kona Storms” which are essentially the Hawaii equivalent of “nor’easters” (and not hurricanes). Again, the track is mainly controlled by water temperatures and atmospheric conditions.

I leave it to the reader to find out more about Hurricane Iniki, and its history as the strongest hurricane to hit the Hawaiian Islands in recorded history. However, I will tease you all with the factoids that damage to farms and chicken coops by Iniki is why Kauai is overrun with chickens!

As for the former leper colony on the Kalaupapa peninsula on Molokai, I’ve told much of the hard SF details already. It is absolutely true that the colony is difficult to reach from most of Molokai, with thousand-foot sea cliffs separating the peninsula from the rest of the island. Around sixty people are permanent residents of Kalaupapa, Makanalua, and Kalawao (combined) and they really do get all of their supplies once a year by barge. Barge Day occurs every year in September—again, I took just a small liberty with dates and timing for the story.

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Part Three: Iron Man—Ranchers of the Big Island

Parker Ranch

This section required a fair amount of research, both in person and through online searches. It’s hard to visit the Big Island of Hawaii without learning about the several of the key features of the island—volcanoes, coffee, and ranching. Some of the most fascinating bits of Hawaiian lore involve the geography—and geology—which play an important role in setting up elements of the story. To understand this significance, we must first talk about the volcanoes: Kohala, Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, Hualalai, and Kilauea. Further, we need to talk about active, dormant, and extinct volcanoes.

Kilauea is an active volcano, and responsible for the 2018 eruption and current activity. The “summit” of Kilauea is Halemaumau Crater, located on Mauna Loa’s southeastern slope. Because of this, Kilauea is often thought to be just a vent of Mauna Loa (which is also is active, with major eruptions within the past century and minor activity in the last five years). However, the two volcanoes have separate—active—magma chambers, indicating that Kilauea developed next to Mauna Loa, and actually contributes independently to the growth of the island. While much of the southern and southwestern extent of Hawaii was formed from eruptions of Mauna Loa, the southeastern and eastern edge of the island owes its development to Kilauea.

Kilauea consists of three main active regions. Halemaumau crater, currently shows active lava presence, and forms the summit caldera of the volcano. Pu’u O’o is a volcanic cone in the East Rift Zone—a network of fissures, cracks, and underground magma channels—which hosted the longest continuous eruption, from January 3, 1983 to April 30, 2018. The Lower East Rift Zone was the site of the May 3 to September 4, 2018 “Lower Puna Eruption” which included the spectacular lava fountain from Fissure 8 (now named Ahu’ailā’au) in the residential area of Leilani Estates. Eruptions returned to the summit caldera in 2021, 2023, and a new eruption began December 23, 2024, and carried into January 2025 (at least).

Mauna Loa is also considered active, with its most recent eruption for 16 days in late 2022. Prior to that, Mauna Loa erupted in 1984, 1975, and twelve eruptions from 1900-1950. While Mauna Loa doesn’t erupt often, it still erupts, and is thus an active volcano. Hualalai, to the west of Mauna Loa, and looming over the town of Kailua-Kona, is also active, although it last erupted in 1801. Recent activity is mostly seismic, with earthquakes in 1929 and 2006.

The geologic record for Hualalai suggests that it erupts every 200-300 years. The last eruption was 224 years ago—is an eruption imminent? Or has Hualalai finally slipped from the active category to dormant?

The next volcanic mountain is Mauna Kea, with the highest peak in Hawaii. It lies north of Mauna Loa, and is thought to be about the same age as its neighboring volcano. Mauna Kea (sometimes written as Maunakea) is definitely dormant, however, with its last eruption more than 4,000 years ago. Two features distinguish Mauna Kea from its neighbors—snow on the summit, and the presence of numerous (dormant and extinct) cinder cones along its flank, particularly the southern flank adjacent to Mauna Loa, but there are many bumps and cones recognizable on all faces of the mountain.

Northwest of Mauna Kea, at the extreme northwestern tip of the island is Kohala, an extinct volcano. Its last eruption was over 100,000 years ago, and much of the volcano has weathered and eroded. The Big Island’s northern and western regions are comparatively stable. The windward side (eastern shore) receives abundant moisture from the trade winds, supporting lush rainforests and cloud forests at higher elevations. The leeward side (western shore) is drier but can still receive rainfall and runoff, creating ideal conditions for coffee cultivation on the slopes of Hualalai and macadamia nut groves south of Hilo.

Between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa is a high pass known as The Saddle, with an elevation over 6,000 feet. In contrast, between Mauna Kea and Kohala lies a broad, flat plateau at 2,000—3,000 feet elevation. This temperate area, with gentle rains and fertile soil from old lava flows, supports the agricultural bounty of central Hawaii. The Parker Ranch is one of the oldest and largest operating cattle ranches in the U.S. It was established in 1847 by John Palmer Parker, on a land grant from King Kamehameha I. It is older than most Texas ranches by at least 30 years.

Parker Ranch spun off its cattle company in 2014. The Paniolo[3] Cattle Company started with 1,400 cows, and now has over 15,000. The ranch also boasts 240 horses[4], and an untold number of sheep, goats, pigs, and boars. In fact, the ranch runs hunting tours for big game and turkey.

The ranch has grown significantly over the years and has some history tied to the U.S. military in Hawaii. During WWII, part of the ranch formed Camp Tarawa, training Marines for the assault on Iwo Jima. After the passing of the last of the Parker family heirs in 1992, the ranch has been operated by a trust, and owned by its own paniolos. This was the genesis of the name “Paniolo Ranch” I used in Ocean.

The astute reader would likely correct me that the vast cattle operation didn’t exist at the appropriate timeline for the BTR universe. However, Parker Ranch was part of the Ulupono Initiative founded in 2009. The initiative gathered investment in renewable energy, expanded local agriculture, and re-established dairy and grass-fed beef industries (including what would become Paniolo Cattle Company). Thus, the effort was already there, and under the authority of the ranch. I stretched authorial license only slightly to alter the name without needing to alter the timeline (much).

Thus, in 2013, when most of the story takes place, the ranch would have had approximately 1,500 head of cattle managed by a maximum of 20 paniolos. In present day, the numbers have considerably increased, and the ranch is worked by a combination of horseback, jeeps, ATVs, and even ultralight aircraft. For a post-apocalyptic world, I imagined that horse-mounted paniolos would provide the bulk of workforce. For Paniolo Ranch to survive, they’d need additional cowboys and horses.

Where might these horses come from? To start with, Parker Ranch has been breeding working horses for as long as it has been in existence. In addition, when one explores the Big Island beyond the typical tourist attractions, it becomes clear that the southern and northern regions of the island are replete with farms and ranches, including ranches specializing in raising horses. Parker Ranch may be the largest, but it is far from the only ranch. Numerous smaller ranches and farms thrive here, particularly near the eastern sea cliffs of Honokaa, north of Hilo, and on the northern slopes of Kohala. Many farms in the central plateau, such as Lalamilo Farm and Big Island Farms, use sustainable agricultural techniques that honor Hawaiian and Polynesian traditions . . .  If any part of Hawaii could survive and thrive after an apocalyptic event, it would be the central plateau of the Big Island.

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The Garrison

The Saddle, a pass between Mauna Loa and Maunakea, forms a direct route between Kailua-Kona and Hilo. Here lies an army garrison called the Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA), though it’s often referred to simply as “the garrison.” This facility, located over 6,000 feet in elevation, includes high-altitude training grounds and an artillery test range.

During World War II, the U.S. military established Camp Tarawa on about 91,000 acres of Parker Ranch. After 1946, the land was returned to the ranch, but the need for a firing range and high elevation training remained. The garrison and Bradshaw Army Airfield were established in 1955, and are still in use to this day. In Ocean, there is a hint of friction between the ranch/Waimea, and the garrison. This is again (mostly) fictional, but stems from the fact that the military didn’t really want to give Camp Tarawa back to the ranch in 1946.

Supplies for the garrison really are brought in by barge and LSV, and the SSGT Robert T. Kuroda (LSV-7) was commissioned in 2005, and is currently home ported in Honolulu. It can carry up to fifteen M1 Abrams tanks—and does, when delivering the tanks to Kawaihae Harbor and the garrison. There’s a tank trail ascending the mountains, paralleling Route 200, the Saddle Road, that accommodates vehicles that need to experience a mountain climb, as opposed to being ferried to the top on a transporter.

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Lee Eller

Into this mix, Ocean introduces Lee Eller, triathlete and Ironman competitor. Lee is inspired by friends in my running circles who encouraged me to walk and participate in fitness events, including a few 5K races (which I walked rather than ran). Their camaraderie was incredible, and Lee is a composite of several people I knew, including two young men who lost significant weight as they took up walking, running, and competing in other sports.

For research on the Ironman Triathlon, I referred to the Ironman website and spoke with locals from my running/walking group, including one person who competed in the Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, held annually in October. In the post-COVID era, the men’s championship remains in Kailua-Kona, while the women’s championship moved to France in 2022. I also talked to the locals for more of that—dare I say it—local flavor!

In The Moon and the Desert, I created a more extreme variant of the Ironman, adding an uphill cycling component. Instead of sticking to coastal roads, I wanted my character Glenn Shepard to bicycle up to Waimea, on the central plateau. This fictional event, called “Extreme Iron,” also appears in Ocean, providing the rationale for Lee Eller to remain in Hawaii to train for the competition.

I have driven (and walked) the same roads and trails as Lee. In September of 2023, I was doing author’s edits of Ocean, and tried to ensure I had all of the details correct, including walking around Waimea (Kamuela) and Kawaihae. I drove and had my wife take notes of which points along the roads the lava rock turned to soil, where grass grew, and where the goats were located! It was in May 2024 I noted that Kawaihae was visible from almost every point along the Hawaii Belt Road (Route 190) from the Waikoloa Road, past the Saddle Road (Route 200) to the airport on the outskirts of the town of Waimea!

It’s a tough job, but I do it for my readers.

By the way, the town is named Waimea, which means red water (wai = water, mea = red). That’s also the name of the canyon on Kauai. Again, the rock strata are often red, and the Waimea River often runs red with silt. In addition, there is a beautiful location of red dirt and rock with waterfalls along the Waimea Canyon Drive on Kauai. It’s very popular with families, because all of the rock is rounded and the pools are shallow. I’m thinking it would be good for a picnic someday.

Hawaiian names get reused because they are descriptive. Wailua means two waters—on Kauai, that’s both a twin waterfall, and a river with two branches. Waiwai, or “water twice” means wealth, as an abundance of water brings riches.

There’s already a Waimea post office on Kauai. The USPS can’t have two post offices in the same state with the same name, so the post office in the town of Waimea on Hawaii island is named “Kamuela.” Again, a bit of artistic license had the locals in Ocean embracing Kamuela as the new name for their broader region. In reality, only the USPS uses the name on the Big Island!

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I’m indebted to so many people who provided input to Part 3. It ranged from friends who’d actually been to the garrison, a friend who helped me figure out LSV-7, local shop owners and managers (such as Humpy’s Big Island Alehouse, and Big Island Runners), museum docents and park guides at the Parker Ranch. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Oahu, and a few local fans who clued me in to local sights and features.

Once again, for the battle scenes, I used a combination of “been there” and drawing out maps based on satellite imagery. Elevation became very important, and it was necessary to get out and see the sights in order to figure out what Lee Eller could see, and where he had to stand to see it.

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Part Four: Kahuna—The Place of Refuge

Kahuna is derived from my original short story “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” although been considerably modified from the original version. For a time, I’d thought that Kahuna wouldn’t fit in the current volume, and that I’d need considerably more words to tell this portion of the story. Thanks to the best editor in the business, Toni Weisskopf, I realized that I could tell the essential story by teasing the main subject throughout Ocean, then using Part Four, “Kahuna,” to wrap up those threads.

John Ringo wanted the Black Tide Rising stories to have a message of hope. He and Toni have instructed authors that stories considered for Black Tide Rising anthologies should not rehash the fall of civilization, but rather focus on stories of rebuilding. In my mind, that also means a good BTR story should have include hope, faith, and, to a certain extent, love. We see this in the “Letters in a Bottle” written by Ham Forsyth, to the individual identified only as Abi. The purposeful implication is that Abi is a loved one, but readers won’t learn exactly who Abi is until much later in Ocean. I won’t spoil it here, but threaded through those letters and Forsyth’s writings is an acknowledgment that he understands that he lacks faith, and needs to rediscover it. Faith thus becomes a major theme of Part Four, “Kahuna.”

Another thread woven throughout Ocean are the deep ethical questions with respect to the victims of H7D3, such as treating them as victims rather than as mindless zombies. It’s a theme that threads through most of the books in the series, and the settings and situations of Ocean allow it to be examined in a bit more depth. In particular, there is a pointed ethical question of the beta Infected, as to whether betas can or should be treated as persons . . . or property. Given that the entire genesis of the novel was how to handle (and care for) the betas, the ethical question is worthy of inclusion, and I hope readers will agree with my treatment. It’s also worth saying that the resolution of the question is both not what I originally intended, and exactly what I wanted from “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”

Part Four was a way to bring together many of these threads: the need to have faith, the need to take an ethical stand on how the betas (at the very least) would be treated, and the attitudes toward and treatment of the Alphas among the infected. These ideas manifest primarily through Dr. d’Almeida, who carries through from Part 1 as the chief medical officer of HI-SLOPE. We also have Captain Bubba Gnad from Part 2 and Lee Eller from Part 3, all contributing to resolving the story and uncovering more about the nemesis that has been hindering their efforts to recover and rebuild.

The backstory behind “Kahuna” delves deeply into Hawaiian customs, particularly the Ali’i (the rulers) and the various laws constraining the common people, including the kapu laws. One notable tradition is the concept of places of refuge. Pu’uhonua O Honaunau, the refuge referenced in Ocean is a real site on the South Kona District coastline.

The Pu’uhonua was more than just a site of refuge, it included the Hale o Keawe heiau (temple) where the ruling monarchs of Hawaii were buried. The larger site constituted the Place of Refuge, where an individual who broke kapu could seek absolution. It is one of the more notable and best-preserved historic sites on the Big Island (and one of only four sites in the islands where it is legal to fly the Hawaiian flag without the American flag).

Throughout Hawaiian history, if a commoner offended one of the Ali’i (rulers, or elites) or was found guilty of a crime affecting them, their family, or their lands, they faced a death sentence. However, a criminal who entered a Pu’uhonua and claimed sanctuary was entitled to a sanctification ceremony, performed by a kahuna (priest), which essentially commuted the death sentence and allowed the individual to rejoin society. There were rules, though: once sanctuary was rejected, it could not be reclaimed. However, if the individual committed another crime against the Ali’i after being sanctified, they could be tried and executed for both crimes. Furthermore, restitution for the original crime might still be required once the individual left the Pu’uhonua.

Note that Pu’uhonua is the title or descriptor for a place of refuge. The particular place referenced in the story is Honaunau.

Interestingly enough, the grounds just outside the Great Wall in Honaunau were home to several generations of great chiefs. So, an offender could seek absolution if they could get to the Pu’uhonua, but getting there held many risks. An individual making it to refuge certainly earned their chance at the sanctification ceremony.

The term “kahuna” has many definitions. It refers to those who (directly) serve the king and courtiers, which could mean healers, navigators, builders, prophets/temple workers, and philosophers. However, in this context, it refers to a member of a religious hierarchy. For story purposes, this sets up an intriguing rivalry between Father Bart, modeled after Father Damien of the Kalaupapa leper colony history, and Wizardbear, a Hawaiian native priest whose beliefs combine Polynesian mythology with animism. To round out the interdenominational nature of the ceremony, I added Abraham Krebs, a gabbai (essentially a Jewish lay leader who determines which Torah passages are read in synagogue).

When writing the outcome of the sanctification ceremony, it didn’t go exactly as I had foreseen, but I am proud of how it turned out, and I hope readers will like it. This was one case where my interest in Hawaiian sites and legends had to rely heavily on museum websites and satellite images. Honaunau is somewhere I hope to visit but have not yet been able to.

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On the subject of hard science fiction and the military side of the genre, I’ve written a few stories that touch on those themes. I am indebted to friends with helicopter experience, who helped with scenes involving the Super Stallion. There are hints of the backstory throughout Ocean, suggesting parallel events taking place elsewhere around the Hawaiian Islands. That story is told in part in “Ghost of Kaneohe,” a short story on the Baen website. It teases events around Honolulu and Oahu during the worst of the H7D3 infestation and progression. Without spoiling the story for anyone who hasn’t read Ghost or Ocean, I’ll say they don’t need to be read in order, but I encourage readers to explore both, as they help tie up loose ends and bring closure to the threads in Ocean.

The final battle draws a few parallels to the final battle in which Kamehameha the Great (Kamehameha I) fought the final battle in the unification of the Hawaiian Islands. I did have to change the locale, as even in the present day, Waipio Valley is so hard to reach. I also dug fairly deep into the Hawaiian pantheon for the events as well—but again, those details are best left for the reader to enjoy.

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It is my sincere hope that readers enjoy Across an Ocean of Stars and appreciate the effort to bring a hard-science approach to a zombie apocalypse story. While I know there may be errors, I ask for understanding, as I dearly love the subject matter and have tried hard to ensure accuracy. If something can be looked up, I hope readers will find it matches the book.

In my opinion, it makes Ocean unique among the BTR novels, and I appreciate this opportunity to pull back the curtain and show readers a bit of the world-building of Black Tide Rising and Across an Ocean of Stars.

1. My term from Across an Ocean of Stars. Ringo referred to it as the Red Flu at one point, and it is expected in the broader BTR universe that H7D3 would have regionally specific names.

2. The name does not reference an earlier experiment, rather “Biosphere number one” is Earth as a whole. Biosphere 2 was intended to see if Earth’s ecosystem could be replicated in miniature.

3. Hawaiian for “cowboy.”

4. Yes, they have an annual rodeo!

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Robert E. Hampson is a neuroscientist, professor, and science fiction author who spends his days decoding how memories work and his nights trying to remember where he left his keys. With a Ph.D. in Physiology & Pharmacology, he’s been on a lifelong quest to figure out what’s going on inside our heads—though he’s still baffled by how people can willingly watch bad sci-fi with terrible science. When he’s not mentoring students or conducting cutting-edge research on brain-computer interfaces, he’s crafting hard science fiction that’s as accurate as it is fun.

In 2015, Dr. Hampson turned his love for science fiction into a writing career, proving that yes, scientists can do more than just stare at lab equipment. His stories, which often involve futuristic medical tech and military adventures, have earned him praise for being “hard science fiction with a vengeance”—but he swears he’s really a nice guy.

As a professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Dr. Hampson teaches science communication, ensuring young scientists know how to explain their research to the public without sounding like they’re from another planet. With over 30 short stories, several novels, and countless lost pens, he continues to explore the exciting—and sometimes baffling—worlds of both science and fiction.

Choices: A Magelight Prequel Story

by Kacey Ezell

Tyrus pulled his gaze away from the slender silhouette of the girl standing on the parapet above him with her head in her hands. Unfortunately, he did this just in time to notice his opponent’s sword arcing toward his face—but not fast enough to react.

Thud. Pain burst open in his nose and exploded his vision into dancing, white sparkles. Tyrus let out a yelp and lowered his own wooden practice sword while stepping backward in surrender.

“Is that yield?” Halik, Tyrus’s opponent and closest friend amongst the other Ageon candidates asked, his voice casual, but not unkind.

“Mother of Magic,” Tyrus swore, bending over at the waist and blinking against the flashes in his vision. “Yes. I yield. I think you broke my nose.”

“Shouldn’t have dropped your guard,” Halik said. “You’ll be all right. I pulled my swing when I saw that you weren’t really focused on practice. Is Acten demanding your attention again?” He held out his hand and pointed at Tyrus’s practice sword, then flicked his fingers in a “give it to me” motion.

“He’s in class.” Tyrus handed off the sword, then dabbed below his nose to make sure it wasn’t bleeding. “I’m not sure which one, but whatever it is, he’s completely absorbed in the material.” He reached up and gingerly touched the bridge of his nose. It hurt, but it felt as straight as it always had. Maybe it wasn’t broken after all.

“So, what broke your concentration then? If it wasn’t your twin telepathically hounding you, what was it?”

“It’s not telepathy.” Tyrus sighed as he dropped his hands away from his face, shook his head, and focused on Halik. “I’ve told you that before. It’s just energy. Same as any other Ageon and Bellator.”

“Yeah, but you’re not an Ageon yet, and Acten is still just a student. No matter how clearly the two of you can feel each other’s emotions.” Out of long practice, Tyrus ignored the underlying note of envy in his friend’s voice. Like many Ageon candidates, Halik’s chances to improve his lot in life rested entirely on his ability to graduate from the Lyceum Belli and become an Ageon.

Which meant that not only must he train his martial skills to mastery levels, but he must also complete the difficult academic curriculum of mathematics, history, magical theory, and military arts and sciences. All of this in addition to earning the trust of and then bonding with a graduating Bellator or Bellatrix.

It was a lot to ask, but if he succeeded, Halik would elevate himself from the obscurity and ignominy of his illegitimate birth and secure his place as one of the empire’s elite warriors, entrusted with the safety and well-being of one of the empire’s precious battlemages. Plus, if Halik bonded with a Bellatrix from a noble house, he would become part of her family. Ageon bonds, when based on romantic attachment, were as legally and socially binding as a marriage.

Unlike Halik, though, Tyrus had no such pressures driving him forward. He had entered the Lyceum as an Ageon candidate at the same time that his identical twin brother, Acten, had started the course of study to be a Bellator. From the time they’d been inseparable small boys, Tyrus had known that protecting and caring for Acten would be his life’s work. Likewise, Acten had known that his ability to feel and manipulate energy flows meant he’d be a valuable addition to the Imperial Battlemage Corps one day. Just as their mother Erisa had been, before they’d been born.

Before his death four years ago, Tyrus’s father Laeo had pulled him aside and spoken to him, man-to-man, about the heavy responsibility of being an Ageon. It meant more than just protecting the mage in battle. Bellators were often so dedicated to their craft that they would neglect their own physical needs in pursuit of their study. It was sometimes up to their Ageons to ensure that they ate, drank, and slept. The Ageon must be best friend, sword and shield, counselor, and companion. That was why a mage must be bonded to an Ageon in order to serve in the Imperial Battlemage Corps. It was also why most Ageon bonds grew out of romantic attachments . . . although not all.

Tyrus had listened soberly as his father spoke of how his mother had been wounded in battle. She and several other battlemages had constructed a complex Working that failed at a critical time, allowing the energy to backlash wildly upon those wielding it. In order to save the others, Tyrus’s mother had chosen to pull the energy to herself. It had worked, but at a terrible price, for she had burned her mind’s magical receptors—his father had called them “synapses”—and destroyed Erisa’s ability to wield magic more complex than calling a small ball of light.

It had been Laeo’s task to nurse her through such a debilitating and tragic injury. Tyrus’s father had stayed by her side day and night, caring for her when she could not care for herself, reminding her that she had more worth than the ability to control complex magic.

In the end, Laeo had convinced Erisa to deepen her study of herbalism, which did not require magical talent, although it was taught at the Lyceum because of its importance to magical healing methods. He also convinced her to bear his child—or children, as fate decreed. Most powerful Bellatrices did not dare conceive, because of the risk of a developing child’s consciousness interfering with their Workings in a dangerous way. But since Erisa could no longer Work complex magic, she’d agreed to give the man she loved the offspring he craved, and Tyrus and Acten had been the result.

“I put the swords away, but I could punch you in the nose if you want.”

Tyrus blinked and focused on Halik’s grin and raised eyebrow. “What?”

“You’re distracted again, man. What’s up with you?”

“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about my mother.”

“Sanva Erisa?” Halik’s expression softened. He liked her. Most of the Ageon candidates did. Probably because she still wore Laeo’s bonding bracelet, even four years after his death. “Is everything all right with her?”

“Yeah, though she’s still after me to get to know the mage students better.”

“She just doesn’t want you limiting your choices,” Halik said.

“There are no choices,” Tyrus muttered, though his mind flashed back to the reason for his earlier distraction during their fencing match. “My brother is the other half of my soul.”

“Yes, but Acten is powerful and handsome, and the fact that he’s open to male and female lovers both means he’ll never lack for company. Red Lady’s tits, I bet half our class would throw themselves naked at his feet for the chance to be his protector. Especially the girls.”

Tyrus snorted and gave a little smile. “They already do.”

“See? So, it’s not like you’d be abandoning him. You deserve to devote your life to someone who loves you, too. Someone you love.”

Tyrus paused for a moment and looked Halik up and down. “You’re a romantic,” he said.

Halik shrugged. “I just know I’ve spent enough of my life being not quite good enough. When I choose my Bellatrix, she’s going to put me above everyone else in the world. And I’ll do the same for her. As it should be.”

“Then that’s how it will be,” Tyrus said, letting his smile grow and clapping his friend on the shoulder. “For you. I’m a different man, my friend, and so is Acten. Lovers come and go, but we’ve been together since our first breaths. Born together, die together. That’s the way it’s always been. That’s the way it’s always going to be.”

A chime sounded, echoing off the stone walls encasing the practice yard. Tyrus squeezed Halik’s shoulder one more time and dropped his hand, rolling his head on his neck.

“Well,” he said, turning to approach the stone stairs cut into the far corner of the walls. “Practice time is over. We should wash up before dinner. Thank you for putting my sword away . . . and for teaching me not to get distracted.”

Halik laughed and fell into step with Tyrus, letting their heavy thoughts drift away on the rising evening wind.

***

Tyrus forgot all about the conversation with Halik and the events that prompted it until late the following evening.

He was walking down the long stone corridor that separated the mage students’s living tower from the tower barracks where the Ageon candidates had their quarters. Ordinarily, candidates weren’t allowed in the student tower after the third hour post-supper, but he had special permission to visit Acten until middle night on alternating nights. It had been necessary during their first year at the Lyceum, when neither of them could fall asleep without the other nearby. Since they’d slept in the same room since the time they shared a cradle, adjusting to having different living quarters in different parts of the Lyceum had been a process that required careful handling.

Even now, eight-odd years later, Acten still occasionally woke screaming in the night, calling out for his brother to protect him against the terrors that dogged his sleep. On those nights, Tyrus would also wake, and run down the long corridor until he could wrap his arms around his twin and reassure him that he was safe, he was whole, and nothing would tear them apart.

It had happened enough that Tyrus could find his way from his brother’s room to his own while blindfolded. He was well familiar with the sound of his own bootheels echoing along this stone corridor in the silence of the night.

This time, though, it wasn’t silent. This time, his footsteps accompanied a sniff and the muffled sound of weeping. Tyrus slowed his stride as he approached the next windowed alcove along the corridor. A young woman wearing the plain garb of a mage student knelt there, next to a pile of rags and a bucket holding gray, dirty water with a thin sheen of iridescence on the surface. Soap, perhaps? Was she cleaning?

Her long, white-blonde hair hung like a curtain in front of her face, but he could see that she covered her face with her hands, weeping into her fingers. Recognition shot through him with a jolt. It was the girl from the parapet the other day, and this time he knew exactly who she was.

“Are you all right?” he asked, speaking softly so as not to startle her. It didn’t work. She jumped and stared up at him, the red rimming her eyes making her blue irises blaze in contrast.

“Oh! F-forgive me. I didn’t think anyone would be here this l-late. I’m just finishing up.” She grabbed jerkily for the bucket’s handle but only succeeded in tipping it over as she tried to rise from her slumped, kneeling posture. The contents poured out in a wave, pooling on the stone floor. She let out a cry that was something between despair and pain, and wilted back down to her knees in the dirty water.

“Oh no,” she breathed, her words broken by more tears. “Oh, I’m so stupid. I can’t even scrub a floor without mucking it all up.”

“It’s all right, Aelys, it’s just an accident.” Tyrus chuckled. “Fortunately, you’ve got some rags right there. Let’s just wipe it up, I’ll help you.” He bent and took several of the rags from the top of the pile and began strategically placing them to contain the spread of water.

“Y-you don’t have to do that,” Aelys said, her voice meek. “I-I’m so sorry to have gotten in your way.”

“You’re not in my way at all,” Tyrus said. “It is I who should apologize to you for walking through your newly cleaned hallway with my boots on. I don’t normally encounter anyone here so late.”

Aelys shrugged and looked back down at her hands before reaching to grab another rag from the pile. She followed his lead, mopping up the water and wringing the rag out into her bucket before meeting his eyes again.

“We haven’t met, have we?” she asked, tentatively. “Only . . . how did you know my name?”

“We haven’t,” Tyrus said, looking up from his work with a tiny smile. “My name is Tyrus. I’m an Ageon candidate here. I just recognized you because of your resemblance to Sanva Aerivinne. You are her niece, right? Aelys of Brionne?”

Aelys nodded shyly. “I am,” she said. Then she let out a little laugh. “Though I doubt she’d be proud to claim the family connection just now.” She waved a hand at the hallway, at the bucket of dirty water, and the pile of rags.

Tyrus chuckled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re not the first mage student to be assigned extra chores. What did you do, fail an exam?”

“Something like that,” Aelys whispered. Her shoulders slumped forward, her ghost of a smile disappeared, and her head dropped as she looked back down at the puddle.

“Oh?” Tyrus asked, his tone light. “That sounds like a story.”

“No story,” Aelys sighed. “I’m just not . . . living up to my potential. I need to work harder. So Sanvar Gilbain assigned me to scrub this corridor in hopes that it might motivate me.”

“Ah,” Tyrus said softly. “I get it. My brother once had to muck the stables for two weeks because he wasn’t focusing in his herbalism classes. He’s still angry at my mother for that one.”

“Your mother?” She looked back up at him, and a bolt of joy shot through him.

“Sanva Erisa,” Tyrus said, his smile growing.

“Oh! You’re that Tyrus. Acten’s twin! I’ve heard of you two.”

“And you’re that Aelys.” He dried his right hand on his breeches and held it out to her. “So, since we’re both famous—or notorious—shall we be friends?”

Her smile grew, lighting up her face and eyes and for just a fraction of a moment, Tyrus wondered what it would be like if his destiny wasn’t already set. What if he could choose Aelys of Brionne as his Bellatrix? What if he could make her smile like that every day, just for him?

“I would like that very much,” she said shyly. She reached out and clasped his hand lightly. “If you’re sure.”

“Why wouldn’t I be sure?” He held on to her fingers until she shrugged and made a wrinkle-nosed face.

“Eh, I’m not very popular,” she said, picking up her rag again and continuing to mop up the dirty water. “People are jealous of my family name, or annoyed that I’m not more powerful—not living up to my potential again.”

“Would you choose to be? Popular?”

She paused then, tilting her head to the side as she considered his question. “Not really?” she said after a moment, but her tone held a definite question. As if she were just figuring it out as they spoke. “I—I won’t lie, I would love to not be the butt of people’s jokes and stupid pranks, but I have no desire to be like Tasri Courlyn with her court of sycophants. But I suppose I prefer fewer, deeper friendships. Like the one I have with Myara, my roommate. She’s become the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister. We will be friends until we die, I think.” Aelys’s smile deepened just a little as she spoke of her friend, and gladness surged through Tyrus at the sight.

“It’s good to have friends like that,” he said. He took his own rag and wrung it out and then moved to collect some of the other rags. “They’re rare and precious. I’m lucky, I was born with my best friend, but some people go their whole lives without that kind of connection with someone. Someone to watch their back.”

“Is it true that you intend to become your brother’s Ageon?” Aelys asked. Then her face flamed crimson and she covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh! I’m so sorry. How rude of me, that’s such a terribly personal question!”

Tyrus chuckled. “It’s all right, didn’t we just decide to be friends? Friends can ask personal questions. I just won’t answer if I don’t want to. And yes, it’s true. Sibling Ageon bonds aren’t unheard of.”

“Oh, I know!” Aelys said, her eyes lighting up in enthusiasm. “In fact, I read that they used to be much more common than they are today. The Bellene mages made Ageons out of their siblings, their friends, their lovers—”

“—random warriors they forced into service.” Tyrus grinned at her as he spoke. “I’ve read History of Bellenic Magic too. Not many have.”

“I like to read,” she said. “It’s one of the few things I’m good at. And, yes, before the Bellenes were conquered and absorbed into the empire, I suppose they did force bonds sometimes. But that was a really long time ago, and no one today would impose a geas on an Ageon candidate. That would be monstrous!”

“It would.” He nodded and then took the last of the wet rags and wrung it into her bucket. “Which is part of the reason why the Lyceum exists. And why we train side by side with mage students, so we can form emotional ties that make the Ageon bond less . . . non-consensual.”

“But you already have a deep emotional tie,” Aelys said, an edge of wistfulness in her tone.

“I do,” Tyrus said. “I have. All my life. We . . . we already feel each other’s energy. I can tell his mood, if he’s hurt, vaguely where he is. I’m told that will intensify once we graduate and seal the binding.”

“Really?” Aelys’s eyes went wide. “That’s fascinating. Are you mage-talented too, then? Can you sense other energies?”

Tyrus shook his head. “No, just Acten’s. He can, though. Which is why he’s a mage student and I’m an Ageon candidate.”

“Well, that makes sense.” Aelys smiled up at him.

“You should meet him. My brother. I think he’d like you.”

Aelys’s smile vanished and she let out a small, bitter laugh. “We’ve met,” she said shortly. “And he doesn’t.”

“Oh.”

Silence stretched between them for a long moment, broken only by the swish of the last rag as Aelys finished mopping up the water.

“There,” she said a moment later, exhaustion tangling with satisfaction in her voice. “Good as new. Thank you so much for helping me clean this up, Tyrus. It would have taken so much longer without you.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said. “Careful getting up. In fact, let me help you.” He stood and took the bucket by its handle, lifting it well clear of where she sat.

Aelys let out another bitter chuckle and grabbed the pile of wrung-out rags before using the wall to lever herself up. From the hiss of air through her teeth and the grimace on her face, Tyrus surmised her legs had gone to sleep while she knelt on the cold, wet stone.

“Are you all right?” he asked again.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I just need a moment for the circulation to get going.”

“Do you want me to help you to your room?”

“No, thank you.” She reached out and took the bucket from his hands. “I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble on my account.”

“I have special permission—”

“I am fine, Tyrus,” she said, with the first hint of an edge in her voice he’d yet heard from her. “Thank you for helping me clean this up. I can manage the rest by myself.”

“All right,” he said, stepping back slowly. “It—it was nice to meet you, Aelys.”

“You, too.” She didn’t meet his eyes. She just looked down at the floor, hefted the bucket and the bundle of rags, and then stepped past him toward the mage students’s quarters.

***

The following day, Tyrus struggled to keep his mind from going back to that interaction in the corridor. After breakfast and the morning’s usual physical training, he looked for Aelys as he and the other Ageon candidates filed into their various classrooms in the interior part of the keep.

“You’re distracted again,” Halik said at one point, his voice sour. “Did you even hear what I said?”

Tyrus focused his eyes on his friend as he gathered up his books and shoved them into his knapsack.

“I heard,” Tyrus said. “Sanva Torreni didn’t like your essay again?”

Halik’s shoulders slumped, and frustrated weariness crumpled his expression. “That’s putting it mildly. She’s making me do it over, and she said if I can’t make a coherent argument of my own instead of just restating what the book says, I’ll fail the class. I can’t fail another one, Ty. I’ll be disenrolled.”

“We’re not going to let that happen,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

“You’ve been helping me,” Halik snapped. He fastened the catch on his knapsack and slung it in quick, angry motions. “She warned me about that, too. ‘You need to write this yourself, Candidate Halik. I’ve read enough of Candidate Tyrus’s work to be able to spot the difference!’”

Tyrus snorted at the exaggeratedly high-pitched voice Halik affected and looked around to make sure the Sanva wasn’t within earshot.

“I can still help you and . . . I might have another idea,” Tyrus said. “We’ve got an hour before midday meal. Come with me real quick.”

“Where are we going?”

“To find my brother.”

“Acten’s just going to laugh at me like he always does,” Halik grumbled. “He’s too used to being brilliant. He’s got no idea how to teach.”

“No, but he might know where to find someone who does.”

Tyrus led Halik from the classroom, out onto an external walkway, and turned for the stairs that led down into a galleried courtyard where mage students mingled with Ageon candidates during their free hours. A quick scan of the courtyard showed him that Acten sat under one of the large, flowering trees while several other mage students clustered around.

“Your brother’s holding court again,” Halik said quietly as the two of them descended the stone stairs. Tyrus snorted softly in agreement. Acten’s good looks and natural charisma made him popular with men and women both . . . a circumstance in which Acten absolutely reveled.

Tyrus didn’t miss the assessing looks that the mage students threw their way as he and Halik crossed the courtyard. The dynamic between mage students and Ageon candidates was an interesting one. From their fifth year on, the Lyceum encouraged students and candidates to get to know one another, to form relationships that would become the basis for Ageon bonds. But because of the nature of the Ageon bond, and because it was always the Ageon’s choice . . . mage students often ended up competing to draw the attention of the Ageon candidates they found most interesting.

And while everyone knew Tyrus had already chosen his brother, Halik was strong, and handsome, and incredibly good at the martial aspect of his training. In fact, Tyrus suspected that it was only doubt about his academic future that kept Halik from having female students throwing themselves at him day and night.

No student wanted to waste time and effort cultivating a relationship—or even a quick dalliance—with a candidate who might not graduate.

“Tyrus!” Acten called out as they approached. As always, a frisson of energy shot through Tyrus as he met his brother’s eyes. Tension he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying in his shoulders and neck slipped away, and a smile came easily to his lips. “What are you doing down here?”

“Looking for you,” Tyrus responded. He strode up to where Acten stood to greet them and wrapped his brother up in a tight, back-thumping hug. “Well, you and someone else,” he added as he let go and watched Acten grip Halik’s hand in greeting.

“Oh, sounds intriguing,” Acten said. He turned back to the other mage students with whom he’d been talking and flipped his hands in their direction. “Shoo. I’m talking with my brother and his friend. You aren’t wanted here right now.”

Tyrus raised his eyebrows at his brother’s rudeness, but the gathered students seemed to take it in stride. They rose and left without a single quip in reply, and Acten turned back to him with a smirk.

“That was rude,” Tyrus said, keeping his voice mild.

“They’re sheep, the lot of them,” Acten said, rolling his eyes. “Not a single one of them has anything interesting to say, and they only want to be close to me because they think it gives them social standing. So, what’s going on? Who’s this other person you’re looking for?”

“Aelys of Brionne,” Tyrus said. “Do you know anything about her?”

Acten made a face like he’d just bitten into a grape to find it rotted. “Ugh. A little. Why do you want to know about her?”

“I ran into her last night. She seemed nice. I think she might be able to do us a favor.”

“Doubtful,” Acten said. “Oh, her family is powerful, of course. But she’s so . . . nothing. Barely any power at all, from what I’ve heard. And she’s so meek everyone walks right over her. No backbone at all.”

“Tyrus, what—” Halik started, but Tyrus held up a hand to silence him.

“But she’s smart, right? She does well in her classes? And she’s a kind person?” Tyrus pressed.

Acten shrugged. “I guess so. Why?”

Tyrus exhaled slowly. “I’m going to tell you something, and I need your word that you won’t be an ass about it, Acten.”

Acten shot him an irritated look. “When am I ever an ass—”

“I’m serious, Acten. This means a lot to me.”

Acten sighed. “Fine,” he said, touching his fingers to his chest. “Best behavior, I promise.”

Tyrus gestured for Halik to come closer, so that the three of them stood in a tight circle that excluded any other ears.

“The thing is, Halik’s in danger of failing some of his classes,” Tyrus said quickly, ignoring the way Halik stiffened beside him. If Acten promised he’d be on his best behavior, he would be. “And the Sanvari are wary of you and me helping him. But they can’t fault a candidate for getting to know a student he might bond with, right? And I’ve never seen anyone who needs a protector as much as Aelys seems to. So, I figured, what if we ask her to help Halik with his studies?”

“I’m not going to get into a relationship with a girl just because—” Halik started, but Tyrus shook his head.

“No one is suggesting that,” he said. “Just that the Sanvari can’t object to you spending time together. And if she’s seen with you, the bullying should taper off. No one wants to piss you off, especially since you’re friends with us.”

“She’s pretty enough,” Acten threw in with a shrug. “You might like her, Halik. And you can’t argue with her family’s social position. Imagine if you did bond with a daughter of House Brionne. Your social-climbing bitch of a mother would break a hip in her haste to kiss your ass!”

Halik snorted a laugh, while Tyrus just shook his head at Acten’s vulgarity.

“Look, I’m just saying, let’s ask her. Worst case, she says no, and we figure out another way to help you pass, Halik.”

“Okay,” Halik said. “I’ll talk to her.”

“Wait, I have more questions,” Acten said, his eyes flicking back to Tyrus’s. “Namely, why under the two moons do you give a shit about whether or not some mouse of a mage student is getting bullied, Tyrus? Do you like this girl?”

“I do like her,” Tyrus said slowly. “She’s kind, and intelligent, and sort of funny. I can’t . . . if we were anywhere else, I’d pay court to her, but you of all people know why I can’t do that, Acten.”

“Because of me?” Something dark and troubled flitted through Acten’s eyes. Tyrus swallowed hard and reached out to grip his twin by the back of the neck. He leaned forward, putting their foreheads together as they’d done since they were tiny boys. Energy surged between them, bringing a feeling of safety, of completeness. Of home.

“Because of us,” he said. “Because you’re my brother, the other half of my soul, and no one will ever come between us. But yes, it means that it’s not fair of me to lead some poor girl on when I’m never going to be free to choose her.”

“So, you’re offering me up in your stead?” Halik asked. Tyrus shot him a look, but Halik laughed. “I’m only joking. I know you don’t mean it like that.”

“I just think you two might be able to help each other, that’s all,” Tyrus said, letting his hand drop and straightening up.

“Tyrus is right,” Acten said then. “Magic Herself knows the girl could use a defender. And, who knows, you might like her. Like I said, she’s pretty enough. And a Brionne, to boot.”

“All right, fine,” Halik said with a grin. “Where’s this girl?”

Acten leaned back, then pointed behind Halik, over to the far corner of the courtyard, where a knot of mage students stood around a coruscating, iridescent column of many-hued fire. “Right over there.”

“Stop!”

Another young woman emerged from beneath the colonnaded walkway that bordered the courtyard. Her auburn hair streamed behind her as she ran furiously toward the group Acten indicated. She held up a hand ahead of her as she ran, blasting force outward from her palm. The flames wavered for a moment, giving the watching trio a glimpse of a white-blonde girl inside. She stood encased in cerulean light that flowed from her raised palms and wrapped around her, forming an energy shield that kept the flames from crisping her skin and blackening all that platinum hair.

As one, Tyrus, Acten, and Halik started over there, arriving just in time to see the auburn-haired girl—presumably the roommate and friend Aelys had mentioned—shove the dark-haired, sneering young woman standing at the head of the group.

“Leave Aelys alone, Tasri! She hasn’t done anything to you!”

“I haven’t done anything to her,” the dark-haired girl—Tasri, apparently—shot back, arching an aristocratic eyebrow at Myara. “She’s shielding against the fire, I’m just helping her get stronger.”

“Are you?” Acten asked, his voice a low, dangerous drawl. Tyrus felt a surge of dark glee rock through him as Tasri and her friends turned to stare at the three of them.

“Acten,” Tasri breathed, a note of fear underlying the word. Tyrus abruptly realized that these girls were a year or two behind his brother in their studies and therefore subordinate to him in the student hierarchy. “We were just—”

“Release her, now.” Acten snapped, and the column of fire vanished as if it had never existed. Where it had stood, an exhausted Aelys of Brionne slowly slumped to the floor. The auburn-haired girl let out a cry and fell to her knees beside Aelys. Halik, too, surged forward.

“Here,” he said, bending to gather Aelys up in his arms. “I’ve got her. Let’s take her to her room. Do you know where it is?”

“Y-yes,” the auburn-haired girl said. “I’m Myara, her roommate. I-it’s just this way.”

“Go,” Tyrus said, jerking his head at Halik. “I’ll stay with Acten and sort this out.”

Halik gave him a short nod and then turned to follow Myara back the way she’d come. Tyrus turned back to see his brother smiling unpleasantly at the leader of the group as her lackeys slowly backed away.

“You’re a bully, aren’t you, Tasri of Courlyn?” Acten said. The girl stiffened, drawing herself up in a manner that was probably supposed to be haughty, but just looked stiff. “Oh yes, I know very well who your family is. Just as you know that that won’t help you in the slightest if Sanva Aerivinne finds out that you torched her niece.”

“That girl is an embarrassment,” Tasri spat. “She can barely access any power at all. She shouldn’t be here, wasting everyone’s time.”

“That’s as may be,” Acten said. “But it’s not for you to decide, is it?”

“But—”

“No. Understand me, Tasri of Courlyn, Aelys of Brionne is off limits.” He stabbed a finger at her chest. “You will leave her in peace, or you will face me.” As Acten said it, Tyrus felt a slight pull through him and black flames appeared, flickering around Acten’s hand and making Tasri’s eyes go wide in terror. Acten lifted his fingers in front of her eyes and snapped them, letting the flames go. His smile widened.

“Do we understand one another?”

“Y-yes.”

“Yes what, Tasri?”

“Yes, I understand you. I will leave Aelys alone.”

“Good girl. Run along now. Spread the word to your little friends. I will hold you responsible for their actions too, you know.”

Tasri pressed her lips together, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. But she nodded, then backed away before turning and walking swiftly after her friends. Tyrus watched her go for a moment before turning to his brother.

“You’re a right ass, you know that?” he said lowly.

“Did you want your little girl protected or not?” Acten shot back.

“She’s not my little girl,” Tyrus said.

“Bullies like Tasri of Courlyn only understand one thing: fear. I’ve just made sure she understands the situation.”

“And what happens when we graduate in a few years and she and Aelys are still here?”

“I’d say that’s up to Aelys and Halik, wouldn’t you?” Acten grinned at his brother. “You know she’s going to fall in love with him, right?”

“I kinda hope it’s mutual.”

“If he’s smart, it will be. Sure, she’s not very powerful right now, but she’s what, fifteen, sixteen? She’s a Brionne, there’s no way she’s not got powerful reserves. In fact, from the way she held that shield against Tasri’s fire, I’d say she’ll be having a breakthrough any day now. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, she’s going to see Halik as her rescuer, which means she’ll be happy to help him with his classes. And she’ll be so grateful for his attention and protection that she’ll fall madly in love with him, giving him the perfect opportunity to realize his dream and elevate his status by bonding with a Brionne Bellatrix. I’m impressed, Ty. This is a manipulation worthy of . . . well . . . me.”

“Shut up,” Tyrus said, rolling his eyes. He turned and started walking back toward the stairwell and the classrooms. “I didn’t manipulate anyone.”

“You did,” Acten said with a grin. He fell into step beside Tyrus. “When you present a choice to a person, you’ve already narrowed the options for them. That’s manipulation, pure and simple. Just because you did it out of kindness doesn’t mean that it’s anything else. It just means that, as always, you’re a better man than me.”

Tyrus shoved his brother lightly, making him stumble. “You’re an ass,” he repeated.

“But I’m your ass,” Acten insisted. “And you love me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I’m your brother,” Acten continued, his voice full of smug confidence. “You don’t have a choice.”

“Fair enough,” Tyrus laughed, reaching out to pull his twin into a walking hug. In the back of his mind, he buried the image of a smiling Aelys under the oceans of love he felt for the other half of his soul. “You’re right. I do love you, Acten. And I don’t have another choice.”

Although that wasn’t exactly true, was it? Tyrus had a choice, it was just one he’d already made.

And he absolutely refused to regret it.

Kacey Ezell is a retired USAF helicopter pilot who writes emotionally charged adventure fantasy and science fiction. She is a two-time Dragon Award Finalist for Best Alternate History and has written multiple bestselling novels published with Chris Kennedy Publishing, Baen Books, and Blackstone Publishing. Find out more and join her community at https://kaceyezell.net/the-dragons-horde.

This Means War

by Melissa Olthoff

I still remember my first dragon flight.

I was all of three years old when my mother took me up on the back of her green dragon, Kerowyn.

That was the day I learned what it felt like to soar.

When I was older, my father took me flying all the time on his gray dragon, Dax, but the memory of that first flight stayed with me. A blurred impression of warm winds heavy with honeysuckle, limitless blue skies, and absolute freedom.

I dreamed of it.

That dream carried me all the way to the Tennessan Bonded Training Academy, where I was currently getting my ass kicked by academy instructors determined to weed out anyone not suitable to be a bonded rider.

“Down!”

My arms burned as I did my millionth pushup of the day, just one of hundreds of trainees lined up in neat rows on the grassy field.

“Down!”

I forced elbows to bend, back to stay straight, core to remain tight, and did another. The morning sun was already scorching, and sweat trickled down my face, stinging my eyes and plastering loose copper strands of hair to my skin.

“Halfway down and hold!” The instructor leisurely strolled down my row, sharp eyes catching the moment my elbows buckled. “If Trainee Harper Tavros falls on her face, we’ll have to start over from the beginning!”

Oh, you motherfucker.

My arms shook, but I held it…and held it…and if the instructor didn’t end this soon I was going to faceplant in the grass and then everyone would hate me.

“Down and recover!”

One last pushup and I staggered to my feet with everyone else, panting and doing my best to stand at attention for morning formation. A few announcements later, a quick water break, and they dismissed us for the next round of PT.

It was only midmorning. Everything hurt and I wanted to die. But I kept going. We all did, because every last one of us on that field wanted to be a rider.

The instructors knew damn well we were all physically suitable, and it had nothing to do with our fitness level. We’d all tested bond capable at sixteen when the Mavens came through our towns and villages on their yearly rounds. Even then we weren’t allowed to set foot on academy grounds until we’d finished primary schooling and turned eighteen, just like any other college or military academy in Tennessan. The difference was in order to attend this academy, an applicant’s blood needed to carry the necessary recessive gene that made bonding with a dragon or griffin possible.

So that wasn’t what the instructors were testing as they put us through the wringer.

They were weeding out anyone who didn’t want it badly enough.

Bonding wasn’t something done on a whim. It was an entanglement of souls, an unbreakable connection between bondmates. That bond also came with a requirement to serve in the Tennessan military and defend our borders from our more aggressive neighbors like Savinia. So, the instructors pushed us, did their best to grind us into the dirt, to break us down, because once bonded…there was no going back.

They could push as hard as they wanted. I didn’t mind a little dirt, and I wasn’t going to break. It was only ridiculous amounts of physical training in high heat and humidity.

At least, that’s what I told myself as my squad jogged in formation along the winding forest trails. For our second run of the day, they’d sent us out with the dreaded pipes of doom. Sweat soaked my PT shirt, my thighs burned with fatigue, and my arms ached from the weight of the metal pipe braced against our right shoulders.

“Step it up a little, Harper!” Bethany Sturman bellowed from her position as the anchor. The girl was built like a tank and had a good couple of inches of height on me, so I’d been stuck at the front while Brian Macklin braced the center. “We need momentum for that slope up ahead.”

“Copy faster!” I sucked in a deep breath and pushed harder. I’m not sure I actually managed to run all that faster, but Bethany started pushing the pace from the rear, and my legs had two choices: keep up or fall.

I kept up, but my shoulder informed me it needed a break.

“Switch!” I called out as our boots pounded out a new rhythm on the packed dirt of the trail.

In a coordinated move we’d perfected over the past month, we pushed the pipe over our heads and brought it down on the opposite shoulder. It didn’t matter which pipe your squad got stuck carrying. They were all equal in length, equal in weight, and equally hated by everyone. They were meant to be carried by squads of four, but my squad had been down to three trainees ever since Julie Pritchard had quit two weeks into indoc training.

It sucked, but it was doable.

Until Macklin decided to screw us over.

“Fuck this shit, I’m out,” he snarled halfway up the slope.

Just like that, he let go of the pipe, stepped to the side of the trail, and quit. The pipe dug into my shoulder and I stumbled under the unexpected additional weight.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Bethany snapped, grunting as she shifted her hold. “At least finish the run!”

Macklin just flipped us off and stalked back down the trail, heading back to the academy.

Unlike Savinia, service wasn’t mandatory for the bond capable. We could leave at any time before bonding. But we were only three days out from hell week. The last week of indoc training. All we had to do was get through that and we’d officially be cadets.

And he’d quit.

“What a dick,” Bethany muttered.

I was too busy panting for breath and forcing my legs up the slope to comment, but I grunted in agreement.

Irritated shouts rang out as the thud of multiple boots on the trail rapidly approached from behind, but this section was too narrow for another squad to get past us. Bethany growled, sounding remarkably like the academy commandant’s red dragon, and surged forward. The abrupt change in pace caught me off guard. I tried to keep my footing but went down to one knee hard, rolling my right ankle in the process.

“Shit!” Bethany immediately stopped. “Sorry, Harper!”

“It’s fine! It’s fine. Everything’s fine,” I ground out as pain shot up my abused legs.

Blowing out a sharp breath, I tried to get back up—and couldn’t. All the exhaustion and aches and pains washed over me, threatening to drown my resolve. Faltering, I tried again, but that stupid pipe pressed down on my shoulder, an insurmountable weight determined to keep me on the ground.

I felt myself break.

It was a tiny thing, a sharp snap deep inside. My next exhale was more sob than anything else. It would be so much easier to give in, to walk away, to quit.

And then a warm breeze heavy with honeysuckle snaked its way through the trees, rustling the leaves and whispering of absolute freedom.

I held onto the memory of my first flight and tried one more time. Teeth gritted and legs shaking, I finally got back up…even though I’d broken when I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t.

“Atta girl,” Bethany roared in encouragement. “Knew you could do it.”

“As if I’d quit on you,” I gasped as we staggered back into an agonizingly slow run. Pain shot up my calf every time I put weight on my right leg, but the ankle held. “You’re a beast…but even you…can’t carry this stupid thing…alone.”

She laughed. “Bet.”

Okay, fine. She probably could. As if to prove it, she shifted the pipe so she was shouldering more of the weight.

As we ran, a shadow passed overhead, momentarily blocking the sunlight shining down through the trees. My head snapped up just in time to catch a glimpse of a pair of green dragons gliding toward the dragon campus of the academy.

Huffing out a sharp breath, I picked up the pace again. I might have broken a little, but I wasn’t going to fail.

We made it to the top of the slope where the trail widened again and moved to the side so the other squad could pass. Resentment flashed through me when they did. Four big guys…okay, three big guys and one lean bastard carrying the same weight as us.

With only two of us, this was going to suck, but we could do it. Even though I was limping, even though Bethany sounded like a dying moose as she shouldered far too much of the weight, we could do it. I adjusted my grip so I was carrying my fair share, and we kept going.

And then one of the guys on the trail ahead of us glanced back, dark eyes passing over Bethany and lingering on me.

As if he thought I was weak.

He flashed us a confident grin before he turned back to his squad. “You guys got this, right?”

Between one stride and the next, he let go of the pipe and sidestepped out of the way of his anchor runner.

“Damn it, Thompson,” the big guy growled.

“You’re going to kill our time,” the lean bastard in the front snapped.

“This isn’t a timed event, Blackwood,” the last guy said, shifting to the middle of the pipe to cover the gap. “All we have to do is finish.”

“Fucking hell, Serrano. Do you always have to be such a know-it-all…”

I lost sight of them as they ran around a bend in the trail. The thick trees muted the sound of their squabbling, and even the synchronized thud of their boots quickly faded.

“Hey, ladies!” The first trainee jogged back to us. “Need an assist?”

I wanted to claw that charming smile off his stupid face. The fact that his stupid face was stupidly handsome was irrelevant. I wasn’t here for that.

“We’ve got it, asshole.”

He slid to the side when I would’ve run right over him and had the audacity to laugh at my mulish expression.

“My name’s Dimitri, not asshole.” He winked as he ran easily next to us. “Just in case you were wondering.”

“We weren’t,” I snapped, forcing my legs to go faster. We rounded the bend and regained sight of Dimitri’s squad, but the gap grew despite irritation pushing my steps. “And we don’t need your help.”

“Okay, hotshot,” he drawled before he glanced back at Bethany. “She always this stubborn?”

“You always this cocky?” Bethany shot back without missing a beat, and I huffed a breathless laugh. We’d only known each other a few weeks, but if I hadn’t already loved her like a sister that would’ve done it.

“Yes,” Dimitri said with an answering laugh.

My glare faltered and faded away. Because I was absolutely being stubborn and, despite Dimitri’s cocky attitude, there was nothing but earnest sincerity in his dark eyes.

“Okay, fine. I’m stubborn. You’re cocky. Bethany is a beast.” I freed one hand to wipe the burning sweat out of my eyes before grabbing onto the pipe again. “And Macklin is a dick. So, yeah. Help would be appreciated.”

“There, was that so hard, hotshot?” Dimitri crooned as he braced his shoulder under the pipe and matched our pace.

“It’s Harper, not hotshot,” I grumbled, even as my shoulders cried out in relief at the reduced weight. “And I’m rethinking my decision,”

“At least my view has improved,” Bethany called out with a grin in her voice.

“Hey, eyes up here,” Dimitri called back good-naturedly.

We finished the run together and ended up back in formation next to Dimitri’s squad. The instructor, a rugged ex-ranger, tortured us with several rounds of exercise involving the pipes of doom before dismissing us for lunch. There was a mad rush to stack the pipes at the edge of the field. Nobody wanted to be last for chow. The academy kitchen staff had a bad habit of combining leftovers into incredibly awful casseroles.

Before we could join the chaos, the instructor stabbed a finger at both our squads. “Not you. Pipes up!”

Groaning in misery, we pushed our pipes straight over our heads and held it. The ex-ranger stalked over, his scuffed and worn leathers barely containing the ridiculous amount of muscle packed onto his large frame. The man probably could’ve held both pipes over his head without struggling. Meanwhile, my arms were already trembling.

“I can’t help but notice that you trainees seem to have taken it upon yourselves to reorganize your squads. Anyone care to explain?” His hard stare landed on Dimitri. “And it better not be for the reasons I’m thinking.”

My eyes widened at the implication. As much as his cockiness had irritated me, Dimitri had genuinely been trying to help. I didn’t want him to get in trouble for it. Neither, apparently, did his squadmates.

Anger flashed over the lean bastard’s face and his mouth opened. Nothing good was going to come from that.

“Sir, we were down two,” I said hurriedly, staring straight ahead. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw the lean bastard snap his mouth shut again. “Trainee…”

“Thompson,” Dimitri hissed from behind me.

“Trainee Thompson offered to assist like a good teammate, sir!”

The instructor pinned me with a hard stare. “And why were you down to two when you started that run with three, Trainee Tavros?”

If it was possible to stand any more at attention with a heavy pipe held over my head, I would have. Resentment welled up, because if Macklin hadn’t quit like a little bitch, we’d already be in line for chow instead of holding this stupid pipe over our heads. My arms were visibly shaking now, and every muscle I had and several I was sure I didn’t were on fire.

It made me less than cautious. Okay, fine. It made me stupid.

“Because Trainee Macklin is a—”

“Trainee Macklin fell out, sir,” Dimitri broke in smoothly. “After I verified he wasn’t injured, I offered to assist their squad to ensure we all made it to the finish line.”

Chagrin washed over me along with a heaping dose of trepidation. I’d almost called Macklin out for being a dick and quitting on us, but that would’ve earned me pushups until the sun set. The fact that Macklin had absolutely been a dick who’d abandoned us in the middle of a punishing run was irrelevant. You didn’t throw fellow trainees under the rampaging dragon.

Our instructor glowered at me for a long moment, long enough I wondered if I would be doing pushups until sundown anyway.

And then he barked, “Recover.”

My arms screamed in relief as we lowered the pipes to our shoulders. The sun beat down from overhead, but the breeze that had barely made it through the trees gusted across the open field unopposed, cooling the sweat on my brow.

“Thompson, return to your squad. Dismissed.”

It was possible we tossed our pipes into the pile slightly harder than necessary, because we were definitely last for chow. As we took our places at the back of the line, I flexed sore shoulders and gingerly stretched out my ankle. Relief punched me in the gut. The joint was sore, but nothing I couldn’t power through. The last thing I wanted was to get sidelined until next year because of a bad injury.

Dimitri dragged a hand through his short hair, leaving it standing in sweaty spikes, and slid forward half a step so he was standing next to me.

“You’re welcome, by the way.” He dropped his voice low as an instructor marched past. “That’s twice I saved your ass, in case you weren’t counting.”

My eyes narrowed, but there was a teasing note underlying his smug words, and I found myself fighting back a grin. “I was going to say thank you, but now I don’t want to. See you on the obstacle course this afternoon, asshole.”

He smirked. “Looking forward to it, hotshot.”

#

Fortunately for my shaking arms, Bethany and I didn’t end up on the obstacle course with Dimitri’s squad that day. There were so many trainees they were cycling us through in groups, and ours had to wait until the next morning.

Only two days left until hell week, and I honestly couldn’t decide what was worse—the pipes of doom, the obstacle course obviously designed to make life suck so much more than it needed to, or the sun that was trying to kill us faster than the instructors could.

Neither the heat or the instructors let up all morning, and by afternoon formation, we were all sweaty, exhausted, and irritable. Instead of immediately dismissing us to chow, they announced they were reorganizing us so we’d be in four-man squads again.

I knew it was coming, but I still grimaced when they split Bethany and me up. They kicked her over to a squad led by a big guy with an impassive expression, and pointed me to my new squad.

My heart hit my toes. It was the guys from yesterday, minus the biggest trainee.

Dimitri smirked. “Hey there, hotshot.”

Perfect.

#

I didn’t taste lunch, which was probably for the best. The kitchen staff had outdone themselves recycling the academy cadets’ leftovers into something to fuel the academy hopefuls getting their asses kicked outside the academy walls.

Literally.

Whether we ended up on the back of a griffin on the ground or the back of a dragon in the skies, all cadets needed to learn the foundations of hand-to-hand combat. From the beginning of indoc, a portion of every day had been devoted to combatives. We’d learned defensive stances, strikes and blocking techniques, how to properly use leverage, and grappling basics. Last week, we’d graduated to pugil stick training, where we put everything we’d learned into beating each other with short, heavily padded staffs.

I blinked up at the sky, struggling to remember how to breathe, and reflected that not much had changed with my new squad. I was still getting my ass kicked, just by Callum Blackwood—AKA Lean Bastard—instead of Bethany.

Callum stared down at me and shook his head. “I still can’t believe we got stuck with her.”

“Be nice,” Zayne Serrano growled as he leaned over and offered me a hand up. I shook my head and rolled to my feet on my own.

“Why, because she’s a girl? That’s got nothing to do with it.” His narrowed gaze landed on my bruised knee. It was entirely possible I was still limping, but he didn’t have to glare at me like I’d hurt myself to spite him. “She’s going to slow us down. And before you can say anything, you freaking know-it-all, the next run is timed.”

My eyes narrowed. The instructor hadn’t ended the matches yet. And Callum was very much distracted.

I spun and swept my pugil stick into the back of his knees. He went down hard, but I underestimated him. Despite having the breath knocked out of him, he lunged to his feet and struck me in the ribs three times before I managed to block the fourth.

Then he executed the same strike to the back of my knees, and I went down harder. Ow.

Growling, I rolled to my feet and shook out my burning hands one at a time. They were already sore from the obstacle course, newly formed calluses irritated by the worn wood, but now they were tearing open on the pugil stick. Tiny dots of red stained the padding where I’d gripped tight, but that was a much more minor irritation than Callum freaking Blackwood.

Just like I’d taken advantage of his distraction, Callum took advantage of mine, striking at my face. I flinched back instinctively, but the strike never landed.

Dimitri blocked him.

“Switch,” Dimitri demanded in a low growl.

“But—”

“Now, Cal.”

The bigger trainee stared Callum down until he snapped his mouth shut and traded places with him. As Zayne engaged my former sparring partner in a lightning-fast series of strikes, Dimitri flexed his shoulders and swung his pugil stick in a quick warm-up pattern.

“You ran the obstacle course this morning, didn’t you?” he asked in a low rumble.

His pointed glance at my hands said he’d noticed the blood. He flipped one palm over to show me his own torn calluses, then started us on a basic strike and block pattern. He allowed me to set the pace, and I took the opportunity to catch my breath and ask the question that had been dancing around the back of my mind since I’d been assigned to their squad.

“What happened to your other squadmate?”

Dimitri grimaced, taking a quick beat to use one shoulder to wipe away the sweat rolling down his face. “You heard about the guy who broke his leg on the obstacle course yesterday?”

I winced and swung my pugil stick high to block the descending strike. “That was him?”

“Yeah.” He easily blocked my low return strike to his outer thigh. “Phillips will have to come back next year.”

An instructor strolled down the line of sparring trainees, getting closer with every deceptively slow stride. Dimitri tilted his head slightly, his dark eyes bright with warning.

“Let’s step it up, hotshot.”

His next strike whipped out shockingly fast, but the pattern was the same and my arms automatically moved to block before my brain fully processed the blow. A grin tugged at my lips and I matched his new pace. Strike, block, step back, lunge forward, twist at the hips to put power into the blow, move the feet to stay balanced. Soon enough, my arms burned and my breath came in sharp pants, but Dimitri didn’t slow. If anything, he sped up, but I did my damndest to keep up. It was fun.

Sadly, the run that followed wasn’t.

A mile into it, I wasn’t sure what irritated me more—my bruised knee, my sore ankle, or Callum’s constant glares and muttered curses. If we didn’t have to finish the run as a squad, I had no doubt he would’ve left me behind in a heartbeat. We were running the same trail as yesterday, and the oppressive heat was sweltering beneath the thick trees, the green a solid blanket between us and the sky without the faintest breeze to stir the leaves. I almost struggled more to breathe than to keep up with Zayne in the lead.

The taller trainee glanced back before he fell in beside me with a friendly grin. “Don’t worry about Cal. He was born grumpy. Just try to match my stride.”

My gaze dropped to his ridiculously longer legs. “You’re…joking…right?”

Zayne huffed a laugh, not nearly as out of breath as me. “Just keep your shoulder even with mine, Harper. Trust me, it’ll help.”

He wasn’t wrong. Having someone running next to me, pushing the pace slightly faster than I would’ve managed alone, helped. It helped more when Dimitri managed to distract Callum so he finally shut up. We finished the run completely sweat-soaked and with a slightly below average time. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the instructors used our run times to assign the evening work details.

We pulled stall-cleaning duty.

I actually didn’t mind, but Callum’s glare was hot against the side of my face.

“See what I mean? She’s dead weight.” He aggressively jabbed the manure fork into the mixed pile of straw and horseshit. “A freaking anchor tied to our squad.”

My eyes narrowed as I worked in the stall next to him, the sweet scent of horse and hay nearly overwhelmed by the sour stench of manure baking in the summer heat. Stalls were cleaned out daily, but the punishing sun had kept the horses inside all day. The stable hands had just turned them out to graze in the relatively cooler evening air, and the occasional whicker of contented horses drifted inside on the breeze.

Zayne shrugged as he pushed a full wheelbarrow down the wide aisle. “It could’ve been worse. We could’ve pulled latrines. Again.”

“Yeah, Cal.” Dimitri dumped a forkload of manure into the wheelbarrow outside my stall and shot a pointed look at the grumpy trainee. “Remind me again whose fault it was the last time we had to clean them?”

Callum shifted his scowl to his messy stall and didn’t answer. A grin pulled at my lips.

“Let me guess,” I crooned. “That mouth of yours got your squad in trouble?”

My grin widened when he just kept shoveling out the stall. I was so filthy my skin itched, I probably smelled as bad as the barn, every last muscle I had burned, and my rolled ankle ached…but all of a sudden, I was having fun again.

So. Weird.

I shook my head at Zayne as he trundled past with an empty wheelbarrow. “You lied to me.”

The taller trainee actually looked outraged. “I did not!”

“Sure you did.” I tilted my head toward Callum. “You said he was born grumpy, but he’s really a born smartass, isn’t he?”

A growl was my only warning. I stepped back hurriedly, one boot sinking into a pile of manure, but I managed to get clear of the sneak attack. Brown chunks rained down on my stall floor, while pieces of straw floated in the air, shining almost gold in the last rays of sunlight.

Callum grinned nastily, his manure fork empty—because that bastard had flung horseshit at me. “Better a smartass than an anchor.”

Calmly, I pulled my boot free of the muck, shook as much of it loose as possible, and met Callum’s stare with a smile. I kept smiling, long after his grin faltered.

Dimitri stalked past with a full wheelbarrow, grumbling under his breath. “If either of you gets us stuck with latrine duty again, I’m going to ask them to make you use your own toothbrushes.”

#

Cadets at the Tennessan Bonded Training Academy rated actual barracks and dorm rooms. Trainees got Tent City, row after row of barrack-sized canvas tents set up outside the academy walls. There hadn’t been nearly as many in my parents’ day, but the academy had ramped up recruitment numbers in the past few years thanks to rising tensions along the border with Savinia.

The tents were patched and faded, leaked whenever it rained, and smelled nearly as bad as we did after a long day of PT. Latrines and showers were segregated by gender, but the tents weren’t. Not only were most of us far too exhausted by the end of the day to get up to any fun, unless you were an exhibitionist, being packed in together cut down on any urge to get to know a fellow trainee a little better.

The rickety old cots were arranged by squad, so I’d moved my meager possessions over to Phillip’s former cot before curfew. And then I waited for the boys to fall asleep. Zayne was out like a light and Dimitri wasn’t far behind him, but Callum tossed and turned for what seemed like forever before he finally started snoring. The rest of the trainees in the tent were either asleep or were too far from our cots to matter.

Time to put Operation Dead Weight into effect.

Phase one—acquire the target and execute my escape.

Escaping would be easy enough. The trick was to move normally. We were allowed to go to the latrines even after curfew, but if I acted suspicious I might wake the boys up. So, I tossed aside my thin blanket, sat up, and put my shoes on without trying to be quiet. Dimitri cracked one bleary eye open, but when he realized what I was presumably doing he rolled over and went back to sleep.

Perfect.

I rose to my feet and casually strolled toward the exit. As I passed by Callum’s cot, I leaned down and swiped his boots without breaking my stride.

Target acquired.

A smug grin curled my lips as I escaped the stuffy tent with them none the wiser. Drawing in a deep breath of humid air, I tilted my face up to the night sky. Directly above, the stars draped across the sky in a hazy, soft glow, but lightning lit up the western horizon in a semi-regular rhythm. Either heat lightning or another summer storm.

Striding along the rows of tents as if I had every right to be there, I enacted phase two of Operation Dead Weight—enlist an accomplice.

But when I crept into Bethany’s new tent to get her help with my little revenge prank, I couldn’t find her, or her new squad. They weren’t the only squad missing from that tent, and a sinking feeling dropped through my stomach like a stone. Not because I was afraid they’d quit. Bethany would never. Which left only one option.

They’d been pulled for their escape and evade exercise.

We’d been warned from the beginning. At any time during the weeks of indoc training, our squad could be “kidnapped by enemy operatives” and dropped in the middle of one of the expansive training grounds surrounding the academy. We were expected to evade capture and make our way back to the academy. If we were captured, we were expected to escape if possible, and endure captivity if not.

Not that they would actually torture us. Except with pushups. All the pushups.

Silently, I wished Bethany and her new squad luck and continued on my mission alone. It had been a few days since the last thunderstorm, but I knew exactly where to find what I needed for phase three—frag Callum freaking Blackwood’s boots.

In the narrow space between the men’s and women’s showers, there was a generous mudhole leftover from the last storm. Even better, it was where the dirt was more clay than anything else, rather than the rich loam that characterized most of the area. It wasn’t quite as good as the clay back home, but it would do the job nicely.

A quick glance around to ensure there were no witnesses, and I slipped between the showers. Snickering under my breath, I knelt down and thoroughly coated Callum’s boots in a thick layer of muck. “We’ll see who’s the dead weight tomorrow.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess Cal.”

My head snapped up, a pair of mud-caked boots dangling from mud-caked hands and about as caught as I could get. “Um…it’s not what it looks like?”

Dimitri leaned against the wall of the men’s showers and smirked as he not so coincidentally blocked my escape. I had no phase four for Operation Dead Weight, no contingency plan if I was caught other than run. I snapped a quick glance toward the rear of the showers, expecting to see Zayne or Callum blocking my retreat, but the way was clear for now. Before I could run away in a panic—or throw a muddy boot at his smirking face—Dimitri let out a low laugh.

“Tomorrow should be interesting. But I swear to hell, Harper, if you or Cal get us latrine duty, I will not be happy.” Dimitri pushed off the wall as if he were about to walk away, when he paused. A grin spread across his face, and his dark eyes danced in amusement in the firelight. “If you leave them by one of the watchfires for a little bit, the mud will dry and be harder for him to get off.”

Surprise held me immobile for a long moment, and then the corner of my mouth slowly curled up into a smirk. “Thanks for the advice, asshole.”

“Anytime, hotshot.” He held my gaze for a heartbeat. “Don’t get caught.”

#

The next morning, I woke up to the beautiful sound of Callum cursing at his boots, at Dimitri and Zayne as they cracked up, and finally at me. I propped myself up on one elbow and grinned.

“Hmm, better clean those boots off, Cal. All that mud will slow you down.” I met his gaze in bright challenge. “You know, like an anchor.”

Callum tried to hold on to his glare, but his lips twitched once, twice—and then he grinned. That grin transformed his whole face, turning him from a smartass into someone I might actually want to be friends with.

“I’m going to get you back for this, brat,” he promised.

I smiled sweetly. “You can try.”

Thanks to Operation Dead Weight, we were the last squad to arrive to morning formation—because Dimitri had insisted we wait for Callum to unfuck his boots—but we beat the instructors, which was all that mattered. My first full day with the squad went slightly better. It helped that my ankle didn’t ache quite as bad, though the bruising on my knee had developed truly spectacular colors. It helped more that my prank had earned a little respect from Callum, though I caught him eyeing me more than once as we went through PT and combatives and another run, this time with our pugil sticks held over our heads. He was definitely planning to get me back, but at least he’d stopped calling me an anchor.

Small victories.

After evening formation, the instructor, a whipcord lean fighter with almost as many scars as muscles, ordered our squad to return to the stables for mucking duty. Callum bitched the entire time we trudged down the mile-long trail, but there was a good-natured edge lurking beneath his barbed words. We’d just emerged from the thick trees and into the open fields surrounding the horse complex when an echoing roar cut him off mid-complaint. Wings flared wide, and a green dragon landed between us and the nearest barn.

A green dragon with a carry net and a highly amused rider.

“Uh, are we getting kidnapped?” Zayne asked.

I sighed. “Yeah, Zayne, we’re getting kidnapped.”

“The night before hell week starts,” Cal growled, and we all swore under our breath. Judging by the broad grin on the rider’s face, not under our breath enough.

“Come on guys,” Dimitri said, rolling his shoulders back and marching to the dragon as if to his own execution. “Let’s get this over with.”

Blowing out a sharp breath, I followed Dimitri across the field. No matter what happened tonight, tomorrow was going to suck. But the longer I stared at that beautiful green dragon, the wider my smile grew and the faster my heart raced. I wasn’t looking forward to the escape and evade portion of tonight, but the kidnapping part?

Oh, hells yes.

#

The setting sun painted the sky in streaks of vibrant color, all oranges and purples and reds. It was the kind of sky that made you want to fly. The carry net wasn’t the most comfortable thing I’d ever endured, but it was reinforced so we weren’t crammed together in a pile of smelly trainees, and we were flying. Despite the mild discomfort, this part of the exercise was absolutely a reward—a free flight with no instructors yelling at us or making us do pushups until we vomited. The warm wind caressed my skin, whispering of freedom and adventure, and I couldn’t stop smiling.

Dimitri’s dark eyes met mine and his grim expression melted away, replaced by a growing smile of his own. Callum’s sarcastic complaints and Zayne’s excited chatter faded into the background. Shoulder to shoulder, we pressed our faces into gaps between the netting, watching the forest roll by beneath our boots.

The graceful green hugged the tree line, staying low so we couldn’t see any convenient landmarks, carrying us until the sun set and we were flying through soft twilight skies. As long as we’d been in the air, I knew we weren’t actually all that far from the academy. The green hadn’t flown in a straight line. She’d banked and turned at random intervals, probably trying to confuse us, but also likely just having fun hauling us around.

My mother’s dragon had always loved carry net sorties.

A bright flash of light drew my gaze to the southwest, and a frisson of apprehension cut through the joy. That definitely hadn’t been heat lightning. Towering clouds built on the horizon, their dark interiors briefly turning purple as lightning flashed between them.

Hopefully the storm would pass to the south like the last one.

Long before I was ready for the flight to end, the green dragon circled a small clearing and pulled into a hover. While any dragon could hover, the greens were far and away the best at it. Combined with their ability to camouflage, they were ideal for search and rescue missions. They saved people. That’s what I was going to do, no matter how hard I had to fight to earn a dragon rider slot.

Carefully, she lowered us to the ground. As soon as the net hit dirt, the rider dropped the right side, allowing us to step free. We shielded our eyes from the dirt and leaves kicked up by beating dragon wings and scurried out from beneath the hovering green. Her rider quickly rolled the net back up, secured it to his dragon’s side, and tossed us a jaunty salute.

And then they flew away, leaving us alone.

In the middle of the woods.

As night was falling.

Something howled nearby, and we all drew closer together as we stared into the dark forest. A branch snapped, and a deer bounded through the brush. It wasn’t the deer that sent a bolt of fear though my belly—it was the shadowy beast that chased after it.

Definitely just a wolf. Not a Savinian broken beast. Not this far from the border…

The panicked crashing faded away, but none of us moved, pressed back-to-back and shoulder-to-shoulder in a comforting huddle. Dimitri abruptly shook himself, as if shaking off the fear.

“We’ve got to move.” His dark gaze landed on mine. “Fast as you can, okay, hotshot?”

“Copy fast.” I flexed my sore ankle and sighed. “This is going to be fun.”

“What if we just left her behind?” Cal stared a challenge at me, and I honestly wasn’t sure if he was poking at me to see what I’d do, or if he was serious.

Before I could answer, the brush rustled, and a sharp beak snapped once to gain our attention. A tawny griffin rose up from concealment, tufted ears pinned flat and beautiful blue eyes narrowed in irritation.

I wasn’t the only one who startled. We’d been standing right next to a horse-sized creature and hadn’t had a clue he was there. His sneakiness was impressive and rather terrifying—and then his rider sauntered out of the brush and rested a casual hand on his griffin’s shoulder.

We’d had no idea he was there either.

Maybe a decade our senior, the griffin rider was blonde, ruggedly handsome, and wore leathers that looked comfortable and lived-in. He had a short recurve bow slung over one shoulder, a long-knife strapped to one hip, and a quiver of padded arrows strapped to the other. His brilliant blue eyes were an exact match to his bondmate’s.

“You pass this exercise together or not at all,” he said sternly. “If you leave any of your squadmates behind, we’ll be forced to fail you and bring you in early.” His eyes narrowed until his stare was as irritated as his griffin’s. “Tucker thinks we should do that anyway.”

We couldn’t hear his griffin—only his bondmate could—but Tucker made his opinion clear with a low growl and another sharp snap of his beak.

His rider smirked. “Fortunately for you, I’m feeling lazy.”

We stared and shifted our weight, none of us certain what we were supposed to do.

“That means run, newbies.” He flicked his fingers dismissively. “Now.”

We ran.

The forest was thick beyond the little clearing, but a faint deer trail broke up the undergrowth. Even so, low branches and brush whipped against our skin as we ran, and I quickly learned to keep one arm raised to protect my face. I wasn’t sure how long we ran, but a stitch burrowed in my side and each breath burned like fire by the time Dimitri raised a hand to slow our headlong rush. His head panned back and forth as we trotted along until he spotted a dense thicket. He gestured sharply before he dove inside.

One by one, we followed and worked our way to the center, welcome concealment if not cover. Our harsh gasps competed with the summer song of crickets as we all fought to catch our breath. There was a small break in the canopy overhead, letting a little starlight through the branches. My eyes caught on something dark on Dimitri’s face. Without stopping to think about it, I caught his jaw in one hand. He was bleeding.

“Harper, it’s fine—”

“Hold still, asshole.” Frowning, I tilted his face to the sky, examining the narrow cut on his cheek. My lips twitched when I realized it wasn’t bad. “I think a branch bit you.”

He pulled away with a quiet snort. “I could’ve told you that.”

“Why did we stop?” Callum growled, his voice slightly louder than our hushed whispers had been. Zayne held one hand out and lowered it sharply, a nonverbal signal for silence. Callum didn’t shut up, but he did lower his voice. “We need to keep moving.”

“Yes,” Dimitri growled back, motioning us to huddle closer. “But we were running like panicked deer and leaving a trail a child could’ve followed. We need to slow down or we’re going to get caught.”

“Again,” Zayne muttered, giving Callum a little side eye before he knelt and ripped away the greenery to clear a small patch of ground. He carefully placed a handful of pebbles in the cleared space, the pale-colored stones standing out against the rich loam, but it wasn’t until he marked an “X” that I realized what he was doing. He was drawing a map. “This is where we are, near as I can figure, and the academy is here. I tried to keep track of our flight path, but we weren’t keeping a straight line while we were running, so this is a wild ass guess at best.”

“A WAG is better than nothing,” Dimitri murmured in approval.

I scanned the tiny section of sky visible through the branches for the navigational stars to orient myself. None were visible, but part of the warrior constellation was, and I was able to find the line of stars that always ran east to west.

“East,” I whispered before I grimaced. “I think.”

Callum studied the sky before he nodded agreement. He knelt next to Zayne and drew a wavy line in the dirt between us and the academy. “If we’re where you think, we should run into this creek sooner or later.”

Both young men stood up and looked to Dimitri. He studied the rough map for a moment longer before he scuffed the ground clean with his boot. “Zayne, you’re on point. Then me, Harper, and Cal last. We move fast, silent, and don’t leave a trail. Objections?”

There were none.

Silently, we all followed him out of the thicket. Zayne immediately set off at a steady pace, not quite running but not walking either. My ankle twinged a few times, but I had no trouble keeping up. A few times branches snapped and underbrush rattled suspiciously, but Zayne always veered away from the potential threats, and we continued on undisturbed.

A faint burble cut through the night dark forest. Not directly in front of us, but off to the right. Zayne adjust our course, but he held up a fist and brought us to a halt before we broke free of the concealing underbrush. We froze and listened intently, but heard nothing more sinister than the nightly chorus of insects. After a short eternity, Zayne swept his hand forward and led us to the creek. It was more mud than water this time of year, and we easily kept our boots dry stepping from rock to rock.

We’d just reached the far bank when Callum hip checked me straight into the thick mud. My boots instantly sank deep into the muck, and I flailed wildly before latching onto Zayne to keep my balance. I snapped a glare at Callum, but he just smirked, white teeth flashing into a razor-sharp grin.

“Better clean off those boots, brat.”

“Gods, you’re such a dick,” I whisper-shouted as I tried to haul myself free.

“Told you I’d get you back,” he said smugly.

Wet mud slurped disgustingly as I managed to pull one boot loose, and I wrinkled my nose at the sharp stench of rotten eggs. “Is this really the time?”

I turned to Zayne to ask him to help pull my other boot free, but he already had one hand extended. I smiled gratefully and reached for him, but he whipped his hand up at the last second and smeared a handful of stinking mud across my cheek.

I scraped the mud off my face and stared at him. “Seriously?”

He grinned sheepishly. “I wanted in on the game too.”

Oh, you adorable motherfucker.

“Be careful what you wish for,” I said sweetly.

Chuckling quietly, he wrapped his muddy hand around my wrist and tugged me free. Dimitri rolled his eyes and leaped onto the bank above the mudline.

“Keep moving—”

A brilliant flash of lightning lit up the night. I snapped my head up, but the sky directly overhead was still clear. As thunder echoed in a rolling boom, a heavy gust of wind cut through the forest, sending the treetops tossing and carrying the heavy scent of ozone and moisture. That storm had definitely not stayed south. More lightning flashed, and the thunder followed a little closer on its heels.

“Storm’s moving toward us,” Zayne muttered uneasily, his own head tilted back as he studied the thin strip of sky over the creek.

“We need to move faster,” Callum snapped, shoving Zayne up the bank to get him moving. Both faltered as lightning struck a tree in the distance, the crack of thunder sending my heart into my throat.

“Or we need to find shelter,” I countered.

Callum spun on me. “If we move fast, we can get back before it gets too bad.”

I stepped into his personal space and jabbed a finger at the flickering flames in the distance, the top of the lightning-struck tree burning merrily. “How is that not bad?”

“What’s the matter, Harper?” He smirked down at me, and even though he was only a few inches taller, he managed to loom convincingly. Neat trick. Another flash of lightning turned the night bright as day and thunder boomed, the storm closer still. I flinched, and Callum’s smile turned mean. “Afraid of a little thunderstorm?”

Dimitri grabbed Callum’s arm and yanked him back. “Knock it off.”

The last echo of thunder faded away, leaving an uneasy silence behind. The gentle burbling of the creek and the rustle of wind through the trees seemed unnaturally loud in that silence. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. The boys felt it too, everyone going still, hard eyes scanning the surrounding foliage.

When had the crickets stopped singing?

“Run,” Dimitri barked.

Too late.

Padded arrows flew out of the trees from three directions.

Fun fact—just because an arrow was padded didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

Not one but two thudded into my upper chest, puffs of dye marking the impact sites. My ragged cry of pain was lost beneath the pained curses of the boys as they were all hit in the torso. Technically, we were all “dead,” but the exercise rules stated any arrow mark counted as a capture not a kill.

Men wearing the leathers of rangers ghosted out of the trees, bows raised and padded arrows nocked. One by one, we raised our hands over our heads, though I caught Callum slipping something under his shirt before he raised his hands high.

We were officially prisoners.

#

“Great job, guys,” Zayne muttered as we knelt in a dejected line, hands bound behind our backs and torrential rain pounding down on our heads. On our forced march to the “enemy” camp, the storm had rolled overhead and the skies opened up. Within seconds, we were all soaked to the skin. Our captors hadn’t even seemed to notice.

“Yeah, okay that could’ve gone better,” I mumbled.

Callum just glowered at the ground and muttered something under his breath.

“What was that?” Zayne grumbled. “I didn’t quite hear you.”

“My bad,” Callum said, his shoulders slumping slightly.

“Mine too,” I admitted. We’d argued while we were out in the open. That had been monumentally stupid and our capture was at least half my fault.

I flinched at the white bolt of lightning that struck a nearby tree, fire eating at the top branches before the downpour drowned the flames. The thunder was so loud I felt it in my bones, a roaring rumble that punched straight through my chest. Before it faded away, a warm weight pressed against my side, and I snapped a startled glance at Dimitri. He was staring straight ahead, but he’d caught my flinch and was offering…comfort.

After a moment, I leaned against him in silent thanks. I hated thunderstorms. Or rather, I loved them when I was safely inside curled up with a good book. Caught out in the open without shelter, not so much.

We weren’t the only ones enduring the storm.

Another squad knelt on the other side of the rudimentary camp, hands bound behind their backs and shoulders hunched in misery. They’d been there when were brought in, so at least we hadn’t been the first to fail tonight. The “enemy” rangers had slipped out of camp the second we were secured, presumably to hunt more trainees.

This was the part where we were supposed to attempt to escape, but no matter how I twisted my hands, I couldn’t loosen the coarse rope. All I succeeded in doing was irritating the thin skin around my wrists.

The lone girl in the other squad caught my attention. Tiny and delicate, she was utterly dwarfed by her larger squadmates. She was also wriggling her shoulders, a dogged expression on her elfin face. A few seconds later, I had to suppress a gasp as her arms jerked free. Without pausing to celebrate her freedom, she slid over to the squadmate next to her and worked on his bindings.

Soon enough, all of them were free. Her eyes met mine from across the rain-swept camp and she mouthed “sorry.” Per the exercise rules, we weren’t supposed to help other squads. She took a step toward us anyway.

Lightning tore across the sky, casting everything into sharp relief. Just before the thunder hit, there was a rustle in the undergrowth. Whether it was an instructor or not, it was a reminder that we were all running out of time to escape.

One of her squadmates, a tall lanky guy, tugged on her arm to get her moving, but she hesitated and looked at something clenched in her hand. Determined eyes snapped up to mine, and she whipped her arm back and threw whatever it was across the camp. I ducked reflexively because I couldn’t catch a damn thing with my arms bound, but she had a strong arm and good aim. Whatever it was landed in the brush behind me with a soft rustle.

When I looked up, the other squad was gone.

No matter how I wriggled, I couldn’t reach whatever it was, but Zayne, with his longer legs, might be able to get it. With a little contorting of the ropes binding us all together, he managed to kick it toward Dimitri.

Callum looked less than impressed. “Oh boy, it’s a rock. We’re saved.”

Dimitri strained his arms until he was able to grasp it, and he winced even as he grinned. “It’s a rock with a really sharp edge. Hold tight, guys.”

In short order, he had us all free, and we wasted no time in running from the camp. We only slowed when we were as sure as we could be that nobody had followed us, though with at least one griffin rider around, we couldn’t make any assumptions.

Griffins were sneaky.

This time around, we didn’t waste time arguing. Dimitri kept the lead, and we followed him, jogging along at the relentless pace he set. My ankle twinged with every step and threatened to roll more than once, but then Callum surged forward and ran with his shoulder against my weak side.

I shot him a shocked glance, but he just smirked again. “You heard that griffin rider—together or not at all, brat.”

Dimitri glanced back, his dark eyes steady on mine and that confident grin on his face. “Together.”

“Oh, now everyone wants to work together,” Zayne said sourly from behind us. “Next time, let’s do that faster.”

A grin tugged at my lips. “Copy faster.”

#

We made it back to the academy with the rising sun. Just before morning formation on the first day of hell week. We had barely enough time for morning chow before we fell in, wet and muddy and exhausted.

So of course, the first exercise of the day was the pipes of doom.

“You ready for this?” Dimitri asked me casually as he marched back with the pipe. He’d volunteered to get it with Callum while Zayne and I stretched out.

“No.” I couldn’t stop my smile though as I took my place at the front. “Let’s do it anyway.”

I gripped the pipe tight and lifted in tandem with the boys—and then blinked in shock as something soft burst beneath my hands. Purple dye puffed out and dusted my hair and PT shirt. Some of it landed on my tongue, and I spat to the side until the nasty taste of arrow dye faded. I remembered Callum tucking something under his shirt when we’d been hit by those arrows. A shirt that was also stained with purple splotches.

I twisted around and glared at him. “You’re such a dick.”

He grinned that same smile from when I’d fragged his boots, wide and happy. “It wasn’t me.”

Dimitri leaned around Callum and winked. “Looks like you’re out of regs, hotshot.”

Laughter bubbled up, washing away exhaustion. All three boys looked so proud of themselves for the prank, and I had to admit it was a really good one.

I gave them all an impish smile. “You know this means war, right?”

#

We got through hell week the same way we’d started it—together.

We enrolled in the Tennessan Bonded Training Academy together, became cadets together, began training together.

It wasn’t all work and no play. We pranked each other mercilessly at every opportunity and even dragged Bethany into our prank war. Pink hair looked good on her, but she nearly killed me for the punishment detail she earned for being out of regs.

Worth it.

The camaraderie during those first two weeks at the academy was everything I’d ever wanted, my first dragon flight everything I’d ever dreamed of.

And then Savinia invaded.

It wasn’t a raid, or a border clash, or even one of the minor skirmishes that had become the norm over the past decade—it was a full-scale offensive. We were officially at war, and it took everything our country had to hold the line. Lives were lost, reserves were called up, and training at the academy became so much more real.

Cadets who’d survived hell week with us dropped out, but we stayed. Even when things got hard, even when the war grew worse, even when we were exhausted and angry and scared, we stayed. Because we wanted to be riders, because it was the right thing to do…because we had each other and we were going to do this together or not at all.

We still pranked one another every chance we got, but somewhere along the way, the pranks became something else altogether. A reminder that there was more to life than training to fight and die in defense of our home, that there was still joy and friendship and hope.

A light in the darkness.

Melissa Olthoff is a science fiction and fantasy author who delights in sneaking in romance wherever she can. She is a lifelong geek and a veteran of the United States Air Force, both of which are incredibly useful when writing. Her degrees in meteorology and accounting are slightly less applicable to writing but absolutely useful when it comes to supporting her family. In 2023, she took second place in the annual Baen Fantasy Adventure Award Contest with her story “Fall from Grace” and won the Imadjinn Award Best Short Story in 2023 and 2024. She is published by Baen, Chris Kennedy Publishing, Hit World Press, and Three Ravens Publishing, and is best known for her novels in the Four Horsemen Universe, the Blood & Armor Series, the Salvage Title Universe, and Hit World Valkyries, as well as numerous short stories.

Space Monkeys

by Gustavo Bondoni

“. . . and that, my friends, is how the Galileo Inflatable Habitat was driven off its orbit by a spray of pressurized poop,” Jerson said. “At a cost of ten million dollars to correct.”

Everyone laughed except Cyril, who stared glumly out of the porthole.

Jerson took another drink from his bulb of firewater from the solar-powered still and glared at him. “What’s the matter, college boy? You think our humor isn’t right for you? Well, look around.” He gestured at their shared space, a cylindrical chamber fifteen feet long around which were the strap-down bunks of the technical support team. “You’re not in an officer’s cabin. You’re not important enough to sleep in one of the areas of the ship that’s spun for gravity. You’re in here with the rest of the space monkeys.”

“I never said I wasn’t,” Cy replied.

“You don’t need to say anything. We all know.”

Cyril looked around the room. No one would meet his gaze except Jerson, who glared at him, his space-thin frame poised as if to strike.

“Whatever,” Cy said. “I don’t care.” He pushed against the nearest surface with a well-practiced motion, floated out of the circular door at the forward end of the sleeping area, and drifted to the nearest computer console, a touchscreen on a bulkhead.

It took him five minutes to locate his next shift’s assignments—he’d been drinking at the same rate as the rest of the off-duty monkeys, so he wasn’t exactly at peak acuity—and smiled. “At least there’s something good in the offing.”

Then he went for a shower.

One of the best things about the Amundsen was that it never lacked for water. The fusion motor needed hydrogen to function, and water for hyperheated reaction mass . . . and the easiest way to feed it was to anchor the ship to a small ice asteroid harvested by the belt miners. So it was the one place in the Solar System where no one would yell at you for using too much water.

Even so, the water, after being sucked from the spherical bathing unit, was recycled. In space, old habits die hard.

He emerged to find Marina, a big-eyed, dark-haired food technician, waiting her turn, wearing one of the ship’s standard green robes of thin, light material. She studied him for a moment, started to say something, then seemed to think better of it. After he passed and was about to head for his bunk, she spoke abruptly. “If you hate it so much, why do you do it?”

“What?” he asked. The shower had helped clear his head, but not quite that much.

“This ship. Why did you volunteer if you hate being a space monkey that much?”

Cy stopped. He turned back and held her gaze. “Who said I hated it?”

“You’re always depressed. You never want to sit down and talk with the rest of us, and when you do, you always make it really clear we’re not good enough for you. The bitterness . . . it shows through.”

“Wow,” he said. “That’s not it at all . . . I . . .” His voice trailed off. Was that really the way people felt about him? Was that actually the way he caused them to feel? “Damn. That’s not what I mean at all. I . . . I have a lot going through my mind right now.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We all do,” she said. “You’re not the only one stuck three hundred million miles from home.”

“If you think being in space is my problem, you need to re-think it. I fought to get here. Less than one tenth of one percent of humanity has ever been in space. And ninety-nine percent of those are tourists who barely made it to orbit, if that. This is a privilege, not a problem. I never forget that.”

She held his gaze. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

She just turned away, sighed, and opened the sphere. A moment later the water cycle began.

He slept fitfully; even after a shower, alcohol and zero gravity weren’t a great combination. His watch vibrated to let him know he had fifteen minutes before shift. He pulled his bleary eyes open and focused on the task list on the display.

And then he remembered the first task and he was awake and heading for the upper decks. They weren’t really above the space monkey quarters in any accepted sense of the word, and they weren’t decks, but that was what they were called.

“You’re early,” Dr. Minuza said as she opened the door. “Thanks for coming so fast.”

Cy mumbled a reply which he hoped sounded enough like ‘you’re welcome’ that she wouldn’t be offended, and looked around the cabin.

“The panel is on the far wall, beside the air vent.”

He glanced at her as he passed: her fire-red hair was not yet tied into the tight bun she normally wore when on duty, and it framed delicate features whose pale skin was dusted with large freckles. Green eyes followed him. She looked much younger than her thirty-seven years of age.

He tried to control his breathing and pulled the diagnostics kit from the tool satchel clipped to his waist. Gently prizing the screen away from the wall, he began by checking the connections.

“I think it’s a software thing,” Dr. Minuza said. “It turns on all right, but then I can’t make it do what I want it to. It just goes into a loop at the submenu when I try to access my working files. I checked on the bridge computer and my work is all perfectly fine, so I didn’t lose anything, but it’s annoying not having access from here.”

“You’re probably right,” Cy replied, trying to keep from stammering. “But sometimes shorts in the connectors will cause feedback that blocks correct operation. That’s the easiest fix so I check them first.”

“I guess I should leave you to it,” Minuza replied.

Cy said nothing but hoped she wouldn’t leave. Ever since he’d boarded the ship at L1, he looked forward to the fleeting moments he could spend with the woman in charge of the ice core extraction mission.

Unfortunately, the ship’s strict two-class system meant they almost never occupied the same spaces or mixed socially. Of all the officers—scientific or naval—aboard the ship, Dr. Minuza was the only one who’d ever stopped to talk to any of the monkeys and tried to include them in the activities of higher-deck crewmembers, with little success.

Cy told himself that it was her humanity and not her beauty that he’d fallen for, but he wasn’t quite convinced. Whatever the case, he wanted to get this job done quickly and well.

Fifteen minutes later, he spoke again. “You were right. It was a software thing. Well, drivers really, but that’s kind of the same thing, I guess.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I think it’s done.”

“Already?” Dr Minuza said, walking over. Her cabin was on the exterior of the ship’s rotating wheel. It was one of six cabins with a permanent half-gee of spin gravity. Unlike the monkeys, the higher-ranked officers walked in their quarters.

“It should be. See if it’s still giving you the error.”

He stood aside as she toggled through the menus.

“It’s working now,” she said. She turned to him. “Please don’t tell me it was something really stupid that I should have caught.”

He shook his head. “Oh, no. This was a pretty complicated glitch. The auto-diagnostics couldn’t catch it because they were stuck in an earlier version and the update to the menus hadn’t been entered into their systems. There was a module that hadn’t uploaded right, and the combination of that plus the diagnostics meant . . .” He stopped talking when he saw her amused look. “I guess you don’t want to hear all of that.”

“No, no,” she said. “I’m sorry if I gave you the impression I wasn’t interested. I was just wondering how you found that so fast. I get problems of that kind in my work all the time, and it can take weeks to spot them sometimes.”

He shrugged. “I trained as a computer engineer, which is why they assign me these jobs instead of sending the usual maintenance team. I’ve seen loops like this before, so I can identify it.” He smiled. “When you’re working on a nav system and it hangs up, you want to be able to get it up and running again before it flings you into the sun.”

Her eyes widened. “Have you ever really had to do that?”

He chuckled. “Oh, no. I think I’d panic if it ever came to having to do something like this against the clock.”

She held his gaze. “Somehow, I don’t think you would. Thank you so much for helping me with this. Now I can get back to work.”

Despite the dismissal, Cy left her quarters feeling like the proverbial billion dollars. Perhaps the one thing he loved most about Dr. Minuza was how she somehow knew just what to say to get nervous people to feel comfortable in her presence. It made you forget that a coalition of governments was spending tens of billions on a mission specifically to get the team she led into a position where they could take their samples.

He shook his head and checked his watch for his next assignment.

***

Cy struggled with the cable. He cursed whichever engineer had decided to design wiring that could only be connected if the entire loom was perfectly neat and all the lines were exactly placed. Those conditions, so easy to achieve in a factory, were nearly impossible to duplicate when you had just replaced two yards of faulty wire underneath an MRI machine bolted to the floor.

Drops of perspiration rolled down his face and into his shirt, unsettling him. He’d become used to sweat, in zero gee, staying where it was until it evaporated away or rolled with movement or air currents.

He felt the deck beneath his back vibrate and sensed the ship moving slightly with the unmistakable sensation of acceleration, and frowned. The burn was unscheduled, a large correction in the middle of their mid-journey cruise phase.

That wasn’t good: it meant that someone had found an error in the nav calculations, and that meant more work for the monkeys. Every screwup meant more work for the monkeys, no matter what it was.

His frown deepened. He’d duplicated the nav calculations for himself—it wasn’t his job, but practice was practice—and they had looked correct to him.

The connector from the cable he’d been wrestling with finally clicked home and Cy began the annoying process of reassembly. The cable coverings clipped back into place with relative ease, but the lightweight aluminum bolts that held the outer casings in place required a specialized wrench that was too long for the space available. He grunted as his knuckles scraped against sharp edges.

The sound of voices in the hall approached and Cy heard the doors burst open.

“Get him onto the bed.” The voice was that of Doc Tune, their medical officer.

The sound of people getting in each other’s way while trying to cooperate reached his ears. Then, through the confusion, another voice: “Can you save him, Doc?” It was Minuza.

“I can try. Chu, get the ICU tube ready.”

The whine of machinery filled the subsequent silence. Cy finished screwing the outer plate onto the MRI and pulled himself out from under the equipment.

“Did they do this?” Chu, the chief engineer, asked.

“There’s no doubt. Shaped charges around the cooling system mainline. If the captain hadn’t noticed the strange bulk in the video feed and gone to investigate, the explosion would have incapacitated the ship.” That was Dr. Minuza’s voice.

“Who is they?” Cy asked.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“We didn’t see you there,” Dr. Minuza said.

“I’m sorry. I was fixing the MRI.”

Minuza and Chu exchanged a look. “How long have you been there?” Chu asked.

Doc Tune didn’t look up from the person on the operating table. “Don’t be ridiculous, you two,” he said, his hands working furiously. He appeared to be inserting a tube into someone’s neck. His hands were covered in blood, and it looked like the person on the table, around which the ICU tube was methodically erecting itself, was also bloody. “Cyrus is here because I told him to move his butt and get that MRI machine fixed, and to drop whatever else he was doing to do it. So if he’s one of the saboteurs, then it’s already too late to do anything about it, since they obviously control my mind.”

“What saboteurs?” Cy insisted.

Chu glared at him, but Minuza just sighed. “He has a right to know. The entire crew has a right to know.”

“It’s still not your decision,” Chu said. “I’m part of the executive board.”

“Which will have to remain in a deadlock since the captain is in no condition to cast the tiebreaker,” Doc Tune chimed in. “So, as the guy keeping him alive, I’ll do it instead. Tell the crew. Minuza is right: they should know.”

“Know what?” Cy said.

Chu looked sour, but when Minuza looked in his direction, he nodded.

“Even before we left L1, there were threats. A group calling itself Pristine System said they were dedicated to stopping us from reaching Europa and contaminating the one life-giving place in the system.”

“Those people are just idiots,” Cy replied. “There were tons of groups who tried to stop us. The courts threw out the ones who went the legal route . . . and the others? How could they even reach us out here?”

“Someone got an operative aboard.”

“That’s impossible. The security screenings—”

“Failed,” Chu said. “We’ve found a bunch of stuff broken that had been specifically checked by maintenance. Stuff that, without destroying the ship or killing anyone would have incapacitated us to the point of not being able to continue the mission if we hadn’t caught it. We managed to fix every attempt we’ve discovered so far.”

“And that was when they tried to kill the captain?” Cy said.

Chu and Minuza exchanged another look. “We don’t think that’s what happened. The explosion was supposed to be a cover up. It wasn’t actually meant to destroy the engine room or anything, just to cover the tracks of whoever had spliced into the main engine control line and put in an unscheduled course-correction burn. The captain was unlucky. He went down there to check. And now he’s probably going to die,” Minuza said.

“No, he isn’t,” Tune said. “I think he’s going to make it. I’ve got him pretty much stabilized. Enough to put him under and let the automated ICU keep him alive going forward. I wouldn’t want to have to wake him on the way, but he isn’t going to die.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Minuza said bitterly. “Without the captain, no one can reprogram the nav computer.”

“Deutz can do it,” Chu said.

Minuza shook her head. “No, he can’t. You know as well as I do that no ship is permitted to make any flight without double human verification plus one computer validation. The only permitted flights in this situation are back to emergency recovery points. The Solar System Treaty is clear.”

“I can get Earth to validate the calculations and—”

“Minuza’s right, Chu. You know it. There’s no way around that. And besides, no one is touching the nav controls, not even to return to Earth, until we find the person responsible for this.”

“Not your call, Doc,” Chu said.

Tune shrugged. “I know that. I just thought you two would probably agree that having an unknown saboteur on board might not be the ideal situation as we head back to the populated parts of the Solar System. I mean how hard would it be to plow this barge into a lunar colony or one of the orbiting inflatable hotels?”

“Dammit,” Minuza said.

“I know,” Tune replied. “Now get out of here and let me tend to my patient.”

***

The other monkeys stared at him.

“It couldn’t have been a monkey,” Marina said.

“Why not?” Jerson retorted.

Tears glittered in Marina’s eyes. “Because we don’t do that kind of thing. We’re here because we love being in space. We live and breathe this. Any one of us would get a huge raise to go down to the surface and run the show in an oil platform or a diamond mine where, if we wanted to go home, we’d be just a plane ride away and we wouldn’t have to learn to walk again. Hell, with the back pay for being up here, we could just buy a big house somewhere and retire. But no one ever does. We just sign up for the next exciting exploration mission. And there’s always one to sign up for.”

“Besides,” Cy added, “the odds of someone getting a random saboteur through the process we went through to get selected is nearly impossible. There were ten thousand candidates for my position.”

“Same here,” Marina said. Everyone in the room nodded in agreement.

“Yeah. That’s why my money is on Cy,” Jerson said with a smirk.

“What?”

“Think about it. You’re the one that’s too good for us, too good to be a monkey. If you’d gone to MIT or the BlueX college, you’d be an engineer on a shuttle service somewhere, working your way up the ladder. In a few years you’d have your own shot at a mission like this one. Of course, that doesn’t happen to guys who went to Nav school in Guyana. Jobs for guys like you will open when the civilian sector needs discount-priced engineers to run the sewage systems for all those planned orbital hotels. That’s going to be a few years.”

Before Cy could continue, Jerson held up a hand. “But when the competition is for space monkey jobs . . . that makes things easier. You probably sailed through the selection process, finishing first in your peer group.” He looked around the room. “So did the rest of us, of course, but I finished first tied with twenty other people. You beat the competition into submission with your five years as a monkey and your fancy training—which everyone knows you’ve been re-certifying every year.” He paused, letting his gaze meet every other monkey’s eyes. “All of us are here because we were drawn out of a lottery of eminently qualified candidates. The only person who was always going to be here is you. That’s what I would want if I was selecting a saboteur to infiltrate a mission: a sure bet.”

“Also,” one of the other monkeys said. “It’s a pretty big coincidence that you just happened to be in the infirmary when the captain was brought in. Almost like you knew that was where the action would be.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cy said. “I was scheduled by someone else. I had to be there the same way you guys have to do your jobs in the assigned slots.”

“You might not be acting alone.”

Cy felt his mouth hanging open. He forced it closed. “Are you seriously accusing me of trying to destroy the dream I’ve sacrificed so much for?”

Jerson’s eyes blazed, then he paused. “No. Not yet. I’m just saying that you would be as good a candidate as any other. Do you think the officers on board worked any less than we did? What do they have to gain from something like this?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” Cy said. He glared around the room. “But I’m going to try to find out.”

***

“I don’t think you did it,” Marina said as they pulled their way along the maintenance shaft towards the water purification room at the rear of the ship. Even though there was a shipwide manhunt ongoing to try to identify the saboteur, the monkeys had been largely ignored in that effort except when one of them came under suspicion. They’d essentially been told that the officers would find the person responsible and to keep doing their jobs.

Which was what they were doing now.

“Of course I didn’t do it,” Cy replied testily. “It was stupid of Jerson to imply that, and he knows it as well as I do.”

“I don’t think he believes you did,” she replied. “I think he only said it so the rest of the monkeys would tell the officers you were a suspect. Of course, they could check your movements any time, but the sheer force of people telling them you were the one would cause you a hell of a whole lot of inconvenience.” When he didn’t respond, she went on. “It would also be a good way of keeping suspicion away from him. I wonder if he did it.”

Jerson’s features, the face of a grizzled space veteran despite only being thirty-four, came unbidden to Cy’s mind. He shook his head. “No. Jerson is a bastard, but he’s not the one. He would do anything to protect this ship and the people on it, especially the monkeys. But if he suspects one of the monkeys was responsible for all of this, he might throw the thing on me—the only one he doesn’t care about—to protect whoever might be the real culprit long enough for Jerson to catch him first. Then, there’ll be an accident.”

“You mean . . .”

“Yeah, I think so. The safety of the ship means that much to Jerson.”

They went the rest of the way in silence. Only after they arrived in the pump room and exchanged a few technical comments did Marina return to the subject. “What I don’t understand is why they just can’t go back through the video of the places where the incidents occurred and see who’d been tampering with things.”

Cy nodded. He’d been thinking much the same thing, and then he’d accidentally come upon some video. Video he didn’t want to discuss with Marina.

***

“Why did you come to me and not to your Technical Liaison Officer?” Dr. Minuza said after hearing him through.

Cy shrugged and wondered if his stammering explanation had made any sense at all or whether the woman before him thought he was a complete imbecile. “You’re the only officer on board that I’d trust with my life,” he replied.

“Why?”

He paused. Saying he’d been in love with her since she first walked into his life when the officers inspected the monkeys at the L1 Heavy Build Facility crew staging area—that enormous spinning wheel that housed those astronauts based at the Lagrange point—would likely get him summarily dismissed. Instead, he went with a different version of the truth: “I’ve researched your project. There were biographical details along with the technical ones. I saw how much you sacrificed to be here.”

A tenured professorship. A promising career. Likely many other things that didn’t appear on that dry, professional background story. All of that immediately jettisoned when the opportunity to lead the science mission on the Amundsen came up. He wondered if there was also a husband, a boyfriend, or even just a beloved pet. None of that was listed on the official bio.

Dr. Minuza nodded. “You’re convinced that none of the technical staff who appear on the videos are behind this?”

“Almost completely certain,” he said. “Partly because it would take a huge amount of time for a space monkey to become senior enough to be considered for a mission like this, and even then there is no guarantee that they’d be selected. But more than that, it’s not the way monkeys think. Monkeys feel about the ships under their care the way you’d feel about a kid brother or a favorite pet. You take care of it. And you know it will take care of you.”

“The video . . .”

Cy sighed. “Look, Doctor—”

“Will you please call me Una?”

In spite of himself, he grinned. “I’m not sure I can do that, Doctor. Monkey habits die hard. One thing a monkey learns early and often is not to call attention to himself, and one sure way of doing that is to get chummy with the people abovedecks.”

“Well, after what you just showed me, I would say you called attention to yourself.”

“Yeah. So the video shows two of the monkeys—”

“Why do you call them monkeys? Are the electricians called that?” Una asked.

“No. We all are. Everyone who isn’t officer class. The kind of people who make the ship go when the captain says go. The ones who come with the ship, and who generally stay on when the mission-specific crew moves on. We’re space monkeys. And proud of it.”

She looked dubious. “All right. Go on.”

“I agree the video makes it look bad for the electricians on that team. They are right where the captain was nearly blown up, and they’re obviously doing something technical. It could easily be a cover for placing a bomb. Hell, if only one of them was guilty, that one could probably hide what he was doing from the other two.”

They watched in silence as the electricians worked. The two men and one woman in the image were surrounded by cables that emerged from the floor as several large pumps whirred around them. Occasionally one of the electricians would stop their work and look into a screen on one of the machines. Then they’d get back to work.

Finally, the three replaced the cables, packed up their tools and left, checking their watches for the next assignment.

“So which one of them did it?” Una asked. “I’m pretty sure Chu and the rest of the investigative team have already seen this, by the way. If they haven’t gone after the electricians, there must be a reason.”

“Wait,” Cy said. He pressed the fast forward button and they watched the empty room flash by until the captain arrived.

“So, no one else went there,” Una said.

“That’s what they want us to think. I want to show you something.” Cy rewound the video and pointed at the timestamp. “This is four hours after the electricians finished,” he said. He let the video play on. “There, did you see that?”

“No. What am I looking at?”

Cy rewound again. He let it play in real time. “There!?”

“What?”

“The screen. Did you see it?”

“No. What did it do?”

Cy played the sequence once again.

“The screen went off?” Una asked.

“Exactly. The screen went off just before the captain walked in. Those screens are set to wait two minutes after someone uses them, then they power down until someone touches them again. Saves energy but, more importantly, it also saves the screens. If they were on all the time, they’d fail more often and we’d have to bring more spares.”

“So that one malfunctioned.”

“Well, that’s certainly one explanation,” Cy replied. “That the screen malfunctioned for several hours and just happened to go off again just before the captain walked in. But there’s another possibility: that someone overwrote the image of the empty room over the real surveillance video and matched the timestamp so no one would realize. That would cover the presence of anyone who entered the room: they simply wouldn’t appear in the video. And the merge with reality happens just before the captain walked in. Since everyone knew the captain had been in there, it would have looked suspicious if he hadn’t appeared in the video.” He pointed. “But the screen, of course, went off. It was the last screen the electricians used. If the person who did this had just waited another minute, it would have been off in the fake footage. But they didn’t. Which is why I noticed.”

“But can that even be done? I mean . . . the security system?” Una asked.

“It can. But it would take mad technical skills . . . and serious access levels. I could probably program it if I wanted to, but I could never get past the security around the ship’s surveillance system. None of the monkeys could.”

“Which means?”

“One of the officers. And there are only two who might have the skills. Well, three if you count the captain, but I think we can rule him out. He might have planted the bomb and blown himself up . . . but there’s no way he doctored the tape after he was placed in a medical coma in the ICU tube. So that leaves Chu and the navigation officer. I suspect Deutz . . . this is a heavy lift on the programming side.”

“But . . . how do we prove it if there’s no video?” Una asked.

“Easy. All we need to do is track both of them during the time we saw. The saboteur will likely have switched the video there as well, so all we need to do is to check if what is happening around him—for example if he runs into one of the monkeys in a video, we can just find that monkey in a different video to check that he was actually there. As soon as we find a discrepancy, we’ll know who is guilty.”

“So how do we do that?”

“We can program the system to follow one person. It’s got reasonable face recognition.” Cy punched in the commands and the video began to play, the blond features of the navigator appeared, walking down the hall.

And the screen went black.

“What?” Cy pressed commands. The screen restarted, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t activate the security feed. “Dammit. He’s on to us.”

Dr. Una Minuza stood, face grim. “I’m going to get him.”

“Not alone, you aren’t. And not just the two of us, either. He’ll be expecting us. Come with me.”

They left her cabin and he led Una aft, towards the monkey’s bunk room. Jerson was at a table in his underwear, drinking hooch from a bulb. His eyes widened when he saw Dr. Minuza. So did that of his three drinking companions.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, as the bulb drifted out of his hand towards the exit. “We weren’t expecting an official visit.” Then he glared at Cy, his look promising dire retribution for bringing an officer into the private world of the monkeys.

“This isn’t a visit,” Una replied. “I need help.” She quickly outlined the situation and asked for volunteers to arrest Nav. He’s probably expecting us. He might have found some kind of weapon.” All four monkeys immediately raised their hands. “I knew I could count on you.”

#

The six of them barreled down the zero-gee corridors until they reached the bridge. It was empty. Then they went up the central spoke towards the cabins.

Deutz’s cabin was on the opposite side of the wheel from Una’s.

They reached it, and Jerson, in the lead, jammed his maintenance override card into the reader. The door swished open and they poured into the cramped room.

Marina looked up at them from under the sheets of the bed. “What the hell?” she asked. “Guys, this had better not be some stupid hazing ritual.”

“Yes,” a man’s voice answered from beside her. Deutz’s head came into view. “I really hope there’s a good explanation for this. If not, I’ll see to it that none of you ever leave the gravity well again.”

Cy ignored him. He turned to Marina. “How long have you been here?”

“Like you care,” she said.

“This is important,” he replied. “And it isn’t some kind of joke.”

“She’s been here for four hours,” Deutz said.

“We need her to tell us,” Dr. Minuza said. She’d finally been able to push past the monkeys jamming the door.

“Una? You’re a part of this?” Deutz said.

“Yes, and I promise you I’ll explain in a bit. But I need to know the answer to Cyrus’ question. And I need her to answer it.”

Marina appeared bewildered. She swallowed and said: “I got here just after seven, ship’s time.”

“Do you trust her?” Una asked Cy.

“Absolutely.”

Una turned back to Deutz. “I promise I’ll make this up to you. And I’m sorry.” She turned to the pack of men and women with her. “Deutz couldn’t have hacked the surveillance system,” she said. “We need to find Chu.”

“Chu?” Jerson said.

“Uh-oh,” one of the monkeys replied. He was looking down at his watch. “I just authorized a suit release for him. He’s EVA.”

A long silence followed until Jerson broke it. “Get my suit ready, too. And Anderson and Gully. All three of the heavy power suits.”

“We can’t use all three at once. It’s against every safety regulation in the books,” the monkey in charge of EVA suits said.

“I’ll authorize it,” Una said.

“I need two officers,” the man replied. He didn’t look happy about it.

Una turned to Nav. “I need you to authorize all three heavy suits out of the ship at once.”

He looked as bewildered as a naked guy who’d been awoken by an armed posse should look. “I am going to need the story. And you’re buying the drinks,” he said to Una. “Authorized.”

Jerson shot from the room, shouting into his comm.

Cy watched them disappear. “Do we have any more suits?” he asked the monkey in charge of the EVA equipment.

The guy shook his head. “Don’t. If Jerson and the others can’t get to him in time with the powered suits, then you’re not going to be of any help clambering over stuff in a regular one. And if I remember correctly you’re only baby rated on the suits. You’d probably be more of a danger to yourself than to Chu if you do go out.”

“Then what can I do to help?”

“Watch and cheer,” the guy replied.

“Screw that. I’m going to get the bastard.” Cy started towards the door, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He turned to see Una looking at him with a puzzled expression. “I thought you were a stammering guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly, too shy to even talk to people. You don’t seem that way.”

“I’m not normally like that,” Cy replied. He felt the color going to his face.

“Ah,” Una said, and he could almost see the understanding flowing into her mind.

Cy sighed. “Do we have a security feed?” he asked another of the tech team.

“Not yet. Someone well and truly borked the video system on the security end of things.”

“Well, at least we can listen in on the suit radios to see where he’s going,” Cy said.

“I already know where he’s going,” Dr. Minuza replied.

“Where?”

“He’s going for the coupling on the reserve ice block.”

“What? Why?” Cy asked.

“Because that way he can force us to turn back no matter what. That’s our reserve water base. The primary water supply is fine to get to Europa—including deceleration and landing burns—and back. But we’d arrive with almost nothing left. If we have any unforeseen circumstances, such as this detour, for example, we might not make it. He cuts that loose, there’s no longer any question: the mission is dead.”

“I thought the mission was already dead,” one of the monkeys said.

“Not officially. We called to ask for permission to run the mission with just one single Nav-rated officer on board. It was Chu’s idea. They haven’t turned us down yet.”

“Why would Chu . . .”

“To cover his tracks, of course,” Una replied.

“Wait,” another monkey said. “Isn’t there more than enough ice on Europa to basically keep us running forever?”

“There would be if we could lift it off . . . but the lander isn’t set up for that. I mean, we could try to jury rig something if it was a question of life or death, and maybe we could make it work. But there’s no way Earth will authorize anything crazy. That ice goes, this is over.”

A monkey came in with a suit helmet tuned to the radio band. Deutz and Marina joined them in the hall, now fully dressed.

“Cut him off by the dish,” Jerson’s voice, scratchy and distorted, came over the radio. “Dammit. Don’t let him reach the cable. Wait. What’s he doing?”

A long silence ensued before Jerson’s voice came onto the helmet radio again. “If anyone on the Amundsen is listening to this, I just wanted to let you know we got him. He gave himself up. He seems pretty happy about something.”

Twenty minutes later, three monkeys frog-marched Chu into the main mess, where the rest of the crew—everyone who wasn’t actively running the ship, at least—had congregated to see what happened.

Doc Tune, Nav, and Dr. Minuza sat behind the officers table. “You look pretty pleased with yourself,” Tune said when Chu came in.

“I should,” Chu replied. “This travesty of a mission, this monument to human arrogance and entitlement, is over.”

“We can still make it to Europa,” Una said. “You weren’t able to drop our ice.”

“It doesn’t matter. I got my reply from Earth. Negative on moving forward with just one navigator-rated officer on board.”

Tune half-stood, fists balled. “I’m going to enjoy watching you rot in jail for what you did to the captain.”

Chu shrugged. “He’s going to live. And he should make a full recovery. You said so yourself. I’m glad about that. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But even if he’d been killed and I had been sentenced for manslaughter, it would have been worth it to keep Europa from falling into humanity’s greedy grasp. We’ve already ruined enough of the solar system. This failure will ground the exploration drive for a while, which will give us time to get the legislation we need passed.” He grinned. “This is a success.”

Tune growled. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to give anyone any ideas, but I wouldn’t be too interested in any investigation if you happened to accidentally fall out of an airlock.” He said it loud enough that no one in the room could have missed it.

Una stood. “I will, though. Chu is confined and can’t leave the brig, but he will return to Earth safely. Do I make myself clear?”

No one met her eye.

“Do I make myself clear?” she repeated.

Mumbled assent.

Una nodded. She seemed to realize she would have to be satisfied with that, because she wasn’t getting anything better.

“This isn’t over.”

Everyone turned to see Jerson standing, a furious expression on his face.

“I don’t want you to hurt the prisoner,” Una said.

“We’re going to Europa,” Jerson insisted. “That’s why everyone came.”

“Is this a mutiny?”

“What?” Jerson seemed shocked. “Of course not. I am a space monkey. Space monkeys don’t mutiny.”

“Then what?” Una asked.

“We have another navigator on board.”

“The captain won’t be in any condition to navigate,” Doc Tune said. “I’m not pulling him out of that ICU unit until I have him back in L1 base where they have the sensor units to make sure I’m not missing anything internal that might kill him.”

“I’m not talking about the captain,” Jerson said. “I’m talking about Cyrus.”

“What?”

“He’s a trained navigator. Top of his class at the old Guyana Ariane Uni. And he’s kept his credentials up. I checked.”

Every eye turned to Cy. It was the navigator who spoke. “Is this true? Will it check out if I ask the commission?”

Cy tried to talk. His tongue seemed way too large for his mouth. Talking was out of the question. He nodded.

“How good are these qualifications, exactly? What did you hit on the standardized?”

Cy swallowed. “Three ninety-seven. And I’m still kicking myself for those three points I lost.”

“Really?”

Cy nodded again.

“That’s fifteen points better than I managed. No one hits three ninety-seven.”

Anger made Cy brave. “I know of two others. One of those was a perfect four oh-oh. She didn’t get offered a place as nav. Wrong school. Guyana is in the wrong school now that the Ariane days are fifty years in the past. She’s an instructor at NASA now, but has never been in space. I got a chance as a monkey, and I jumped at it.”

“Excuse me.” The Amundsen’s navigator left the room in a hurry, presumably to check on Cy’s claim.

Una caught his eye, one eyebrow raised. Cy nodded.

She smiled.

He blushed.

The excitement over, people started to file out.

As Jerson went past, he bumped Cy slightly with his shoulder, then gave him a mock scowl. “Do us monkeys proud, college boy.”

Then he was gone, and so was everyone else, leaving Cy sitting alone wondering whether his life had just changed forever.

Gustavo Bondoni is the 2025 winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award.

Undercurrents

by Marisa Wolf

Three hours of meetings, and Dagore hadn’t had a single drink nor cause for violence. Neat tricks, both, given he was in the back room of his usual bar, Bait, and taking conversations with several of the most dangerous residents of Muckers.

Broadside’s largest populated section, called Muckers so long it had become the official name, stretched along the majority of the city’s harbor. Built mostly on marshland and mud, it made for a precarious life, which made for tough residents. Dagore had been born and grown up there. Embodied the spirit of his people, some had said.

It wasn’t a compliment.

He took it for one anyway.

Even if currently the “spirit of his people” was tired, frustrated, and about to drown the dregs of patience along with the gods. Not just for a long night’s work. That was typical. But the fact he’d looked for a certain companion for long days past, and neither seen nor heard from her . . . Was she avoiding his messages? It had been a long, long time since anyone dared to avoid him.

“Talaver’s next,” Murian said from his lounging slump by the door.

“No word?” A spike in his midsection cleared the drag of Dagore’s distracted boredom. He’d sent a pair of his largest, smartest men to poke around Talaver’s block early in the morning. Following up on a vague twist in his gut, something just a little off. He’d expected them back before Talaver himself arrived for their semi-regular check in.

“Nothing yet.”

Dagore grunted in response and glanced at the notes in front of him. He’d memorized it all, but the hashmarks and coded shorthand might be enough to distract him from the fact he’d been sitting for hours. Could practically feel the slow chime of the water clock down the street, marking all the time he’d been on his ass inside a bar not drinking, rather than taking a turn through his streets.

Drowned gods in their depths, he missed the days he hadn’t been the boss.

Constantly on the move. One altercation after another. Jobs he could do himself rather than send someone else to do.

Problem with being real good at the work that kept Muckers moving was it brought more work. Accordingly, he and his brother had collected more and more of their quarter’s dissatisfied population who also wanted profit, power, and the appropriate use of applied violence. And when it came to “become the boss” or “report to a boss,” well . . .That decision was easy enough.

Only person who’d ever successfully told Dagore what to do was his older brother, and Elgin had been out of Broadside more than he’d been in it by the time the choice was on them.

So here was Dagore. Top of the Muckers heap. Half a dozen Watch captains on his payroll, and far more gambling-ring runners, fight callers, and people who wouldn’t be welcome in the fancy streets of the Hiane district on their best day. Good business. Profitable.

Less fun than it used to be, back when he could bash heads on the regular.

Dagore dropped the unhelpful line of thought and tapped his knuckles on the thick table in front of him. Murian shoved off the wall, cracked open the door, and stuck his head out.

A murmur of conversation followed, and Dagore glanced at the empty mug in front of him. Though mildly tempted, he neither sighed nor gestured for someone to jump forward and refill it. He wasn’t here to sip a good ale, after all. He was here to intimidate, glower, and ensure business continued smoothly.

Murian opened the door wide, and Talaver strode in. Met Dagore’s eyes clean, didn’t flinch or bluster.

Still. The twinge in Dagore’s gut didn’t fade, and he didn’t have to put any effort into the faint scowl he bestowed upon the other man.

“I brought my ledgers,” Talaver said easily as he sat. “Not copies though, so if you need to keep them . . .?” He trailed off delicately, because he couldn’t very well outright tell Dagore the boss couldn’t keep them now could he?

Dagore flicked a finger, as though it didn’t matter. It didn’t—he’d glance over them, but the numbers would tell him only what Talaver wanted him to see, and he already knew that wouldn’t matter. “Business is good, then?”

“It’s the usual. We have a new Hiane son attempting to run up a tab without paying, but we’ll have that settled soon enough.” Talaver scratched the back of his neck as he slid his wrapped pages over with his other hand.

“How deep?”

The conversation continued, numbers, details, all very normal.

Then Sennet stuck his head in without knocking. Met Dagore’s eyes. Nodded.

“A moment,” Dagore said, interrupting Talaver’s cheerful recitation of the brawl that added to the previous night’s take. Sennet entered the room, crossed to Dagore’s table, slid a paper to his boss.

Dagore unfolded it, scanned the contents, and inclined his head. It was enough. More would come out if needed, but he had more than enough to act on the trouble he’d scented.

“Something more pressing?” Talaver asked, mildly interested. Not insulted. Not making a big deal about it.

The man was good. Not a hint of concern in his expression or bearing. If only he hadn’t gotten too greedy too fast, they both could have continued to make plenty of money.

Ah well. Even the gods had drowned—far be it from a normal man to resist temptation.

“You could say.” Dagore stood, clasped his hands behind his back. “What’d we agree to, at the beginning of our arrangement?”

A shadow of worry in the wrinkles of Talaver’s forehead. “Clean books. No killing unless it’s necessary. Lower rates for Muckers boys, keep the highest for the Hiane types slumming it.” Talaver lifted a shoulder and resettled himself in his seat. “Come to you with solutions, not just problems.”

“In that order.” Dagore made a tsking noise, gestured with one hand. Murian and Sennet had hold of Talaver before the man finished registering the danger. “I don’t ask a lot.”

As impressive as Talaver had been before, he ruined it now. Predictable excuses. Wild offers of riches and wealth he couldn’t possibly cover. Pleading. Rage.

Dagore ignored it all. Stood uncaring watch as words turned to grunts, then groans, then wet sounds that spoke of nothing but pain.

His hands clenched, remembering the precise pressure it took. The angle of knuckle to flesh. The order of an effective series of breaks. But that wasn’t his job anymore, and no one saw the flex of too-empty hands behind his back while the work was being done.

***

A knock at the door, in the pattern for “news.” Nothing that concerned the Talaver business, or they would have simply come in. There were more than a few runners out and about today, and maybe there would be something more interesting. He called for whoever it was to enter, and the door opened on Jep, one of his newest, youngest runners. Good lad. Fast. Interested but not unduly so.

Dagore twisted his head to crack his neck and stretched his hands. His clean, unmarked hands. He stepped away from the action, none of which required his further attention, and gestured for Jep to approach.

The young man didn’t so much as glance at the body sagged in the corner, nor the man above him, and Dagore noted it as another mark in the boy’s favor.

“Letter for you, boss.”

“From?”

“The Donnavia. Ship’s still under quarantine.”

“They signal for a pick up, or did they deliver it?”

“Signaled.”

Not uncommon, but that shift in his gut told him there’d be more. He took the letter without further conversation. Sealed. Wax emblem he didn’t recognize, streaked in red and gold. No obvious signs of tampering. His knife slid under the seal and through in a single smooth motion, and the paper unfolded into a short letter with instantly recognizable handwriting.

This one’s got some required special handling. You’re the only one who can touch it. Ky’s expecting you. Hope to see you soon, shoal.

Unsigned, but that didn’t matter. Emphasis of heavy ink on certain parts of certain letters, the odd blot in very specific places—the sender could only be one person.

Elgin.

He’d learned his letters alongside his big brother, knew the shape and flow of the man’s words as well as his own.

Elgin traveled, found things of value, and trusted his younger brother to use the criminal connections of Muckers to resolve projected value into actual profit. Minus two other connections of Ky Felanel, Dagore provided nearly all the non-Harborwatch marked goods into Broadside.

Dagore didn’t work for Elgin. Didn’t work for Ky. But if anyone could hand a directive over to him and not get dragged under a ship for the trouble . . .

It had been a long time ago, felt like, when Dagore had been Elgin’s shadow. His older brother had been all the family he remembered, and Elgin had saved his life literally and figuratively more times than either of them cared to count. Between Elgin’s cleverness and Dagore’s nose for trouble, they’d not only survived but also gathered more street kids along the way—there were shortages aplenty in Muckers, but orphans were never one of them. With all the flash and bravado of street kids, they’d called themselves the Shoals. They were the danger that people had to navigate and a shiny group of fish, and they thought themselves very, very clever.

As they got older, cutesy names fell away. Work got more interesting, and then bloodier, and then a little less so. Dagore shot a glance to the bloodied corner that held what had been Talaver, and revised his thought. Work got less bloody for Dagore, if not for those under his responsibility. Elgin had finagled a deal with Ky, who financed his early travel.

With time and effort . . .and a few murders, they’d figured out more and more ways in and out of the city, bypassing the Council’s laws and the reach of the various Watches. The Harborwatch kept every ship that came to Broadside’s port in deep anchor for weeks. But the pace of business occasionally required a much shorter turnaround.

Dagore never had much liked waiting.

The Eye will be all over this. Anything Elgin and Ky determined needed “special handling” was guaranteed to be something the Broadside’s pet killers would want to crack down on. If the Harborwatch was good at their jobs—and, unfortunately, they were—the Eye was excellent.

Well. So am I. Dagore wouldn’t be in his position if a little thing like the ruling Council’s special rippers were too much for him to handle.

Murian returned, wiping his hands dry on one of Bait’s bleached towels. “Boss, another runner’s in with a business proposition to knock over a bilgehole on jeweler’s row—”

“Does it look good?” Dagore didn’t need to approve every job his people did—didn’t grow a good crew, making all the calls that way. They didn’t do a lot of out-district heists, though. Nor did he have time for it, not with Elgin needing things. Just about the only person in the world who could consider telling Dagore what to do. So it figured that this was the time Murian would find something big, worthwhile, and a pain in the ass. Though Dagore had resources even beyond Muckers, people who could help with thieving.

“Looks interesting for sure.” Murian tipped his hand side to side, ended it palm up for leaning toward yes.

“Then we’ll do it. Nice work.” The men exchanged nods, and Dagore added, “Send a runner to Cima’s crew.” Dagore had worked with Ky for a long while, which meant he’d come into contact with the better crews that worked with the fence. And the best, in his opinion, was Cima’s. There were five total in the family of thieves, each with their own strengths. As a group, they were clever, fast, successful, and as an individual, Cima was all those things and then some.

Dagore didn’t think that solely because their years-long flirtation had tipped over into quite a bit more, recently. In fact, he wouldn’t have wasted time flirting if those things hadn’t been true to begin with. Add in those legs, those eyes, the weight of her hair in his hands like . . .

He trusted her with the job. That she was easy on the eyes was a scoop of sweet for a boy raised on Mucker’s sour.

“You want to float this one out?” Murian didn’t sound doubtful, just like he was ensuring confirmation.

“There’ll be room to share off the top.” With a careless gesture behind them, he added, “Especially now we won’t be bleeding profit in Talaver’s blocks.”

“Fair enough.” Murian clapped a hand to the side of his leg and followed Dagore out of the room. The staff at Bait had their own clean up crew and would take care of what remained of Talaver without any directives from Dagore.

The were some perks of being the boss, after all.

***

Once the last dregs of the sunset had been swallowed by the sea, Dagore took two men and his favorite small boat. The Slips, named for Muckers’ blindingly strong home-distilled alcohol, moved through the water like a predator.

Oar locks always oiled and muffled, angled oars made to dip soundlessly and shove them through the water, dark, nonreflective stain inside and out. She was a simple, clean-lined beauty, and the three of them rowed their respective pairs of oars in the fluid, continuous motion of long practice. They feathered the oars at exactly the right moments, without a single stray splash to carry over Broadside’s harbor waters.

The lights of the city blurred behind them as the mist rose over the waters. An excellent night for sliding into the quarantined part of the deeper waters—little illumination from the moons, plenty of cover from the Harborwatch’s tower light, and a relatively straight shot to the Donnavia.

Relatively because it would be foolish to head straight for a target. There was always the chance, no matter how faint, that someone had eyes on them. Dagore hadn’t escaped the Watch’s eye—nor the Council’s Eyes—this long by assuming no one was looking.

As the boat cut through the calm night waters toward the edge of the harbor’s protective bend, they slowed. In near unison, each took one of their two oars out of the water, leaving two in the water on one side and a single oar on the other to hold their position. Dagore lifted the long glass and surveyed the faint glow of lanterns that leaked through increasing fog to mark each of the moored ships. Several brightened and dimmed, but only one was set in the pattern that meant his path was clear.

He stowed the long glass and put his oar back in the water. Sennet and Permain waited, and when he didn’t lift it again to signal a call off, they followed suit. Count of three, and then their synchronized motion continued.

They moved relatively slowly but along with the gentle pull of intertide. The two moons were too far apart for a heavy low or high tide shift, but the midtide was enough to make good time in their current heading. Before long the Slips nestled against the ocean-side of the Donnavia. Sennet tossed up the float that indicated they were there.

No panic resulted above—they were expected, after all—but it took a few minutes for the rope ladder to be lowered gently toward them. Good. Meant the ship’s crew hadn’t seen them coming.

Sennet stayed with the Slips, and Permain followed Dagore aboard.

It all went smoothly until it didn’t.

The captain didn’t ask more questions than he needed to, the crew had worked with Dagore’s men before, and no one went sideways, instead remaining calm and on target.

Dagore went belowdecks, opened the indicated crate, lifted the stone box within, and was halfway up the steep stairs when an overly cheerful voice bellowed, “’Lo the boat!”

Several members of the crew took up the sound.

Bilge shit in buckets.

With crap visibility, clearly the Harborwatch had chosen to check on their quarantined ships up close, rather than rely on the light tower. Smart. Inconvenient when they were smart.

Dagore knew Sennet would handle the boat, floating her out careful and silent. He couldn’t go as fast with one set of arms instead of three, but Slips was a small rig for a reason.

The Donnavia had only been moored to the harbor chains for two days, so it was unlikely any member of the Watch would climb on board. So for the second time that day Dagore’s arms tensed for action he couldn’t take.

Instead he held still between decks and listened to the carrying conversation between ship’s captain and Harborwatch, and imagined all the things he couldn’t do.

Knock the man out and douse him with actual slips so he woke up reeking of Muckers liquor, ruining his report to his supervisor.

Unleash Cima on the pack of Council enforcers to talk circles around them and vanish like the thief in the night she was.

Ease off the side of the Donnavia, swim underneath it, pull himself aboard the Harborwatch boat and slaughter everyone on board.

Same silent underwater, but pry a hole in the boat and let them sink into the grasp of the drowned gods. The Harborwatch would rather take their risks with the predators of the deeps than break quarantine and suffer the deadly touch of the Eye.

None of it was practical. He had no ship-breaking tools, no reserve of alcohol, no Cima. Could only wait until the captain successfully completed the formalities, the Harborwatch shipped off, and the captain himself shadowed the hatch above. Finally, he did.

“Clear, friend, though not sure when your boy will be back.”

“When he’s sure it’s clear.” Dagore swallowed back a grunt and shifted the stone box against his midsection. He didn’t bother to argue the “friend” as it was a smarter move than using his name, no matter how much distance the captain had let the Harborwatch take.

“Which might be awhile.” Dagore stood as though he hadn’t been in place with a heavy box for an endless stretch of minutes. “Anything else that might be to my interest on your ship?”

***

Night was too far gone for Dagore to tromp through Broadside’s districts with a box of suspicious provenance, so he returned home to Muckers. No one waited at his elevated house, and the two men accompanying him peeled away before he hit the bottom step.

He’d tried to wave off guards at his home, but that was one fight being “the boss” hadn’t let him win. Instead they’d compromised, and he had none visible. His most trusted men handled the detail and ensured everyone was paid very well, and Dagore allowed himself a few hours a day pretending half the city didn’t want him dead.

As he reached his door, he didn’t hesitate. He shifted the box under one arm—awkward, but enough to clear one hand for his longest knife. No specific twist to his gut indicated danger, but the lines over his doorknob were shifted. Someone was there. Inside his house.

Dagore opened the door as though this were not the case, body slightly to the side so the stone box would block an immediate attack.

A feminine figure, heavily shadowed in the dark, sat on his table.

In the flash of a second he had to brighten, he realized it wasn’t Cima at all.

“Terio,” he said, perfectly calm. His heart rate hadn’t even had time to change. “Don’t remember sending an invite.”

“Cima didn’t want to keep you waiting.” There was something in the woman’s voice he couldn’t—maybe wouldn’t—identify.

“Don’t remember asking for alternates, either.”

At that, Cima’s older sister and the occasional leader of their crew laughed, full-throated and deep. “Not like that, Muckers.” The figure slid from the table, leaned away, and a lantern flared softly to life. Slow and low, so as not to ruin either of their vision. “You sent us a job offer.”

“That.” He put the box down as though it were nothing of note. Terio’s eyes followed it regardless—thieves. The good ones always had a sense for value. “It’s not one I have time for. Seemed to fit your flow.”

“Normally we’d agree, but looks like we might be going straight and narrow.”

“That a fact.” He raised his eyebrows, tilted his head. Terio’s appraisal shifted from the box to him.

A bit admiring, sure, and thorough. But professional, with none of the heat that flared between him and Cima. She was pretty, Terio, but too serious for him. Dagore had plenty of loom and intimidate himself, didn’t need it in a partner.

He cut the thought off—he didn’t need a partner. Already had his brother sending him on jobs and weighing in on his business. No need for more distance between him and the work that needed doing.

“It is for now.” Terio swung her arms free to indicate her lack of threat.

He wasn’t fooled, but he wasn’t worried, either. “Still working with Ky?”

“We are.”

“Let her know I’ll have something for her tomorrow night, will you?”

Terio didn’t glance at the box again, but he could feel the curiosity she barely held in check. “Knew you didn’t need us for the job.”

That’s wasn’t what I was . . . Again, he crushed the thought. Unnecessary.

“Need’s a strong word.” He grinned, then stepped aside and gestured at the door behind him. “See yourself out.”

“Will do.” She didn’t wince or flinch—that had never been Terio’s style—but her step around him was respectfully wide. “Our apologies we couldn’t make the job.”

Ours. Not Cima’s. Fair enough.

He locked the door behind her, considered switching flops again. Sleep somewhere else. Somewhere a crew of thieves didn’t feel comfortable appearing inside of just because he was tumbling one of them.

The thought faded even before he finished it. That wasn’t how it was with Cima. And he didn’t need to move—that crew might be very good at what they did, sure.

But so was he.

And while they stole . . . well. For the moment, what he did was apparently stow a box until he could deliver it to a fence. Because his brother asked him to. Not a lot of hidey holes in his flop, and for lack of a better place, he pried up the floor boards under his bed. The box fit easily in the prepared space, and no one would get to it without waking him up.

Not even clever, charming thieves.

***

The next day went easy, as such things went. He approved a carefully controlled fire, leaned in a doorway while his boys rousted some men who’d tried to push their luck a little too far the night before.

Nothing that took much of his brain space, so he took the time to run through his options for getting the box to Ky without being noticed. Something moved deep in his stomach but he ignored it. Would be nice to talk his plans over with Cima—no one understood a smuggler like a thief—but he’d been doing this a long, long time before she’d ever washed up his way. Besides, he still hadn’t heard back from her.

Nor should it be that hard a job, delivering a single box to Ky. Though he and the fence had intermediaries for a reason. Too many of the Watch knew exactly who Dagore was, so his walking an odd box through the streets would call attention.

If he was seen.

If it was odd.

“Boss.” Murian approached him by the docks, a slump to the tall man’s shoulders that promised nothing good.

“What is it?”

“Movement by Gavriel.”

“Watch?”

“Rippers.” Murian fell into step with him, looked straight ahead.

“The Eye’s out in Muckers again.” Not uncommon. The city had been isolated for centuries, and what little traffic they got in was quarantined to keep plague out. Sailors made up most of Muckers’ itinerant population, and when quarantine wasn’t enough, sailors were blamed. The Eye existed to shut down the spread of illness by any means necessary. They only ever had one means, though. Kill the sick. Burn the structures. End the threat.

Their ruthlessness meant some called them Rippers, but Dagore refused them the courtesy of a catchy name. They were the Eye, and he delighted in blinding them where he could.

“Any word of sickness?” he added, and Murian shook his head rapidly. “So they’re just on the move?”

“Not asking anyone anything. No one’s dead. They’re just . . . out.”

“But they identified themselves?”

“One of ’em’s recognizable. Fights at the Ebb Tide sometimes, broke his nose enough times he doesn’t do disguises great.” Murian twitched his shoulders as though keeping back a shudder. “The other one walks like him. Not Watch, so figure he’s an Eye, too.”

“Well spotted.” Dagore clapped the other man on the back. “Keep a look on them, but not too close.” Unbidden, he thought of the box under his bed, but Gavriel wasn’t anywhere close to his place.

He couldn’t stay inside all day, nor walk his streets with a box his brother had entrusted only him with and pull attention, so he’d have to hope it was a coincidence.

Hope it was a coincidence, and turn his rounds back to the blocks around his flop, just in case. Maybe he’d get lucky and get to dispose of a body or two himself after all.

***

Barrels of oil-soaked fish filled the cart, and the stolid old mule and reinforced wheels moved more quickly over the smooth stone of Ossington than they ever could through the mud of Muckers. Lamps along the street were hazy but lit, and the water clocks chimed in vaguely pleasing tones.

Ossington was considered barely a notch higher than Muckers to most of Broadside, but Dagore could appreciate its graces the few times he bothered to visit.

The night was heavy with the last reaches of summer heat, and Dagore hadn’t bothered with a long coat or hood. It would stick out more than his face in the shadows, and if he’d timed their path right, he wouldn’t encounter a single Watch patrol.

A small distraction to the north should attract all Watcher pairs from the area, allowing him a clear path through Ossington’s winding roads to Ky’s shop at the edge of Hiane. The box in the false bottom would go to her, Dagore would go home, the fish would be delivered to the restaurant that had a standing order for the “delicacy” of Muckers, and everyone would get a good dawn’s sleep.

It was a solid plan. Could have worked.

But if “could haves” were rain drops, the whole world would’ve drowned with the gods.

At the head of Ky’s street, three figures resolved out of the shadows. The broadest one stepped forward, chest out.

Green coat. Watch, not Eye. The Toadies, for their jackets and their position up close and personal with the Council.

A small bit of luck.

“Where you off to then, citizen?”

“Delivery to the Catavar,” Dagore replied, voice pitched low and Muckers accent thick.

“Why so late?” The first man again, as the other two spread out and approached the cart.

“They need it for opening.” Dagore made a show of shrugging, like the whims of his betters were beyond him. “And not many outside Muckers like sharing the road with our fish.”

“Maybe seal the barrels better,” the man approaching Dagore’s left said. “We smelled you coming.” The street lamp across the way was enough to illuminate the sneer on his face, but Dagore could hear it, clear as water, in the Toady’s voice.

“Then you know I’ve got what I say I got.” Though utterly calm, Dagore allowed irritation into his voice. Just a man doing his job, trying to get it done.

The streets around them were quiet. Not a scuff of boot or clatter of loose rock to say any of his men were approaching. They were too good for that, of course, but it was equally likely they’d been pulled by the distraction, or any number of other possible interruptions.

“We’ll be taking a look all the same,” The first man said, still in place, smartly out of reach as the others approached.

Seemed an awful coincidence, three Watchers posted at the top of Ky’s street, when Dagore had a delivery to make.

Pressure in his gut said it was no coincidence at all, but he didn’t need that herald to tell him. He let go of the cart and stepped back, as though making room for the Watch to look.

Stepped wide.

Let the man on the right grab his arm. Waited until the one on the left ducked to run a hand along the underside of the cart.

No fools, these.

All the worse for them.

After far too long restraining his tendencies, Dagore released the knife from his sleeve and stumbled against the Toady who held him. The taller man grunted and shifted his weight, and Dagore muttered an apology that made him lean closer.

In excellent timing, the Toady at the cart called out and the first man turned his attention toward him. Dagore didn’t need them to make it easy for him, but he wouldn’t ignore the opportunity.

In a smooth motion he straightened, brought his arm up, covered the Watcher’s mouth and dug the knife through the man’s throat with his other hand. The mule stared ahead, jaw working, unfazed by the motion and blood.

Dropped the silently dying body gently to the ground. Crossed the street, around the cart. Slammed a fist into the broad man’s face, whirled to kick the bending man in the gut.

Couldn’t let them sound the alarm. Dagore had a knife against their swords, but they hadn’t seen him coming, distracted by the outer false bottom of the cart.

Why have one false bottom, when two would do? The larger one, full of Council stamped papers, provided excellent cover for the box no one but he could touch. Perfect to pull the attention of the Watch, leaving him space to slice another set of vocal cords and kick another man in the face hard enough for the Toady to spew teeth and blood and various other liquids.

Easy enough to finish the job from there.

Slide open an empty barrel.

He didn’t have room for three bodies, but he could probably fit two. Maybe slide the last one into the hollow bottom of the cart? No, that would take too much—

“I see what she sees in you.” The approving drawl, warm and directionless, snapped him upright, knife flat against the sides of his legs.

His heartbeat slowed almost immediately. He wasn’t quite as undisturbable as the mule, but he knew that voice. “Ky.”

She waved her cane—no. She slid the sword hidden in her cane back into its compartment, and even in the dim light he could tell she had smiled.

Ky was barely taller than him, all angles from the sharp cut of her pants to the severe lines of her yellow-bright hair. Her smile had edges, but she’d never cut him. Not yet.

“I was ready to help.” The disappointment was so clear in her voice he knew she didn’t mean it, but she snapped her fingers and turned her back. “But you were faster than I expected, and I’m glad I got to see instead. Impressive.”

“Do you—”

“They’ll clean up in a moment.” She held up her fingers again, as if to explain the purpose of her snap. “Can you bring just my delivery, or must I take the whole cart?”

“What, you don’t have use for four barrels of fish?”

“Three, I think. And a bit of pickled Watchmen.” Her sigh, though soft, carried through the moisture-laden air between them. “I’d hate it to go to waste.”

He didn’t ask which, and cast a cursory glance to either side of the street. No alarm had gone up, and no lights had flickered on or off in any of the windows. People in this area minded their own—and so close to Ky’s business, they had little desire to know more than they needed to.

With a pause to wipe his knife clean on the nearest green coat, Dagore returned to his cart. He slid an extra treat to the mule, as a valued member of his organization deserved. Each filled barrel in the cart’s bed was heavy, but he’d learned the knack of moving them as a gangly youth. Their heft offered no challenge to him now. He shifted two, slid open first one hidden door, then the next, and lifted out the stone box.

By then, two of his men and three of Ky’s had arrived, and all set wordlessly to their various tasks. The mule would get properly spoiled at the end of the delivery, and Dagore didn’t need to think any further on the barrels.

He gave them all a nod and followed the fence to the alley entrance of her shop.

“It’s been a while,” he said as the door closed behind him. The back room was lit at exactly the level of brightness to keep from shocking night-adapted eyes, and he gave it a once-over without allowing too much interest in his appraisal. Ky could be touchy about her secrets.

She was hardly alone in that.

“Not much has changed,” she replied carelessly, and pointed to the single clear table in the room. He put the box down, stepped back, and considered if leaving would count as fleeing the dragon’s lair.

But the dragon smiled, all teeth, and it was too late for him to go. “Did you open it?”

“No. Elgin didn’t ask me to, and I’d rather some distance from whatever it is the two of you are up to.”

“Who says we’re up to anything?” She leaned her hip against the broad table and kept her eyes on him rather than the box.

“It’s you,” Dagore replied, with the sort of slow smile that didn’t need to be all teeth to threaten. “And Elgin. And my job is done.”

“It’s not.”

“I’d argue, but I don’t have to.” Dagore shrugged. “I don’t work for you.”

“No. But you still care about your brother.”

Shit in the drowned gods’ sea. He took care not to stiffen, not to blink. Only tipped his head to the side and regarded her. “Don’t see what the two have to do with each other.”

“A part of this shipment needs to be dropped in a house in Hiane. If it isn’t, your brother’s movements will become unfortunately constrained.”

“You’re telling me someone in Hiane has connections in another city?” Unlikely. So few did.

The Council. Ky. Him. Maybe three other people, none of whom lived with the obscenely wealthy in Hiane. The rest of Broadside focused on Broadside, same as they had in the centuries since the world burned. Other places might as well be stories, like the drowned gods and lost relics themselves.

Unlikely wasn’t impossible, and he smoothed his face ahead of whatever answer she might give.

“I’m telling you someone in Hiane is expecting something very specific from your brother, and if you don’t deliver it, there will be consequences for him.”

“Then he should have put that in his letter—”

“Dagore.” Ky made a noise low in her throat and shook her unnaturally bright hair out of her face. “It’s you or no one. I can’t be seen delivering this. Elgin thinks he can still trust you. Can he?”

“You don’t usually ask stupid questions,” he said, still weighing how serious she was.

“You don’t usually require them.” She waved a hand, and three of her rings caught the soft light from the chandelier above them. Two more, dark stone, wrapped like shadows against her pale skin.

“Why is it, exactly, that it’s me or no one?” He tried, not for the first time, to figure out what his brother had gotten into on foreign shores. It had gone far beyond profit, but he couldn’t parse the direction. Beyond sinking like a stone in the depths, as far as Dagore saw it.

“You can ask her for help, but we both know you don’t need it.” Ky spoke with a lightness that edged toward, but didn’t quite reach, mocking. The fence was talking about Cima, clear as Mucker’s mud. His turn to make a noise deep in his chest, rejecting her mixed taunt and compliment.

“And you’re keeping her occupied elsewhere, I take it.”

“Does it make it better if I tell you it has nothing to do with you?” She lifted a single shoulder and a single eyebrow, then turned away. “Here, I’ll repackage the delivery.”

“Your kindness knows no bounds, Felanel.” Dagore considered killing her and being done with it, but it was a passing thought, no real weight to it. Like the sharks in the deep, he was a predator, sure, but not a monster. He only killed when there was a need, not for convenience.

Not for simple satisfaction.

Whatever was off about this whole situation tugged insistently somewhere in the back of his head, in the center of his gut. And killing Ky wouldn’t answer or solve it. It would cause only trouble, rather than lead to any solutions.

She lifted an awl-shaped tool, pressed it into an indentation in the side of the box. With a soft grunt, she finagled something and then lifted off the top.

Dagore didn’t bother to look inside. It wouldn’t be that easy to decipher the mystery, and did him no good for her to see him craning to take in what all the skulking and hiding was about.

“I am kind,” Ky said, as though there hadn’t been a long pause since he’d spoken. She put the awl on the table, and lifted something out of the box.

Another, smaller, flatter stone box.

He couldn’t even pretend surprise.

“Kind, but not particularly nice. They aren’t the same, though who am I to tell you that?” The faint sound Ky made might have been a laugh, but he didn’t dwell on it.

“Where am I going with this, and what do I need to know?”

“You don’t want to see?”

Dagore didn’t choose to repeat himself, and after a moment she twitched her lips and pulled the stone apart. He hadn’t even noted the seam.

Ky tilted the bottom of the stone box toward him, and the black velvet lining made the object upon it glow. A knife—slightly longer than could be properly classified as a knife, but not quite a sword. A deep, smoky silver-gray metal, shining like it sat in the sun freshly polished, rather than lay in a box in the middle of the night. The hilt was darker, studded with three winking gems in the pommel, but the grip begged for a small, strong hand.

A fitting gift, for a thief with an eye for jewels.

The moment the thought occurred to him, he dismissed it. Not because the ostentation of the knife’s flash was more suited to Cima’s little brother, Meesh, all show and boast. No, it wasn’t Cima’s taste that was in question. It was the immediate stab of pain that lanced through his body in pure rejection of the weapon.

Whatever that knife was, he’d kill with a cheery song in his heart to keep it far from Cima’s hand—or even Meesh’s. Or anyone he knew. Deliver it to some rich knob in Hiane? Fine.

“Who’s the target?”

“The target?” Ky cocked her head and studied him as she closed the box.

“That’s a murder weapon, shine or no. You making moves in the upper city?”

Her eyes narrowed, but her posture didn’t shift. “It’s just a delivery.”

“That no one notices.”

Ky nodded, and despite the casual slump of her lean, he could read the wariness in her.

“I’m not the one you get for subtle.”

“I don’t know, you definitely led Ci—”

Dagore hadn’t had much patience to begin with. Ky needling at him didn’t increase his calm, but he’d taken worse from better. He let his face drop all expression, leaving only the flat, affectless look that had stopped hardened killers cold. While he didn’t step toward her, he shifted his stance ever so slightly. Ready to move, should moving be needed.

Ky straightened from the table and eased her foot back, but after that fraction of a moment’s reaction, a slow smile spread across her lips.

“It’s like that,” she murmured.

“Where’s the knife going?” he asked instead of politely inquiring what she meant. Dagore was done with this, whatever “this” was, and finally she seemed to understand.

She told him with an efficient minimum of words—just a drop, in a house, behind a gate. Clear directions. Easy approach.

Despite her brevity, the twist that told him trouble was coming deepened into an ache. The inside of his nose burned, but maybe that was just the lack of Muckers’ scent in the air around him.

Every step toward Hiane made it worse. Kept his head on a swivel. There was plenty to see.

***

The streets widened and smoothed as he moved into Hiane proper. In Muckers, the houses leaned against each other, united against the storm and tides. In Hiane, the buildings spaced apart. Shorter. Flatter. Like Hiane snoots, distant and haughty from their “lessers.”

Ridiculous or not, it was a good thing, that space, as well as the shadows they left, because more than once he had to slide into an alley, turn his steps. The lights were brighter here, and the water clocks every other block had their own illumination. Can’t let the rich forget what time it was, given how valuable each tick must be for them.

The Toadies patrolled, but Dagore knew how to walk like a man with a purpose and not a person of interest. There were few others out at this hour, but as the shops fell away and houses moved back from the street, he caught flickers of motion at the edges of corners. Figures that slipped away before they could be fully seen.

They didn’t move like the Watch. Too much of a prowl, not a march. A shadow of movement at the edge of his next turn sent him down a different side street, and this time he registered the profile of the man. Too hard-faced to belong to Hiane.

The Eye was out.

No question who—or at least what—they were looking for.

Putting out an Eye wouldn’t be as easy to hide as killing a few of the Watch. The Council would kick over like a barrow of seabugs, razing the streets until they had an explanation.

Once more Dagore stifled his propensity for violence, strolled. Hands in his pocket, box tucked under his elbow. Just a package to deliver.

Casual. Unhurried. Unworried.

The block ahead held his target house, and he walked along the upright prongs of the fence.

Climbable. He kept it in the corner of his eye and reevaluated. Cuttable. The barrier existed to pretend at strength and security.

Dagore didn’t even lock his door.

The gate loomed up ahead, and the skin along Dagore’s back prickled. Someone was behind him. Quiet.

Too quiet for the Watch. Far too quiet for a drunk getting home late.

Without hesitation or a sign of awareness, he continued toward the gate.

The presence behind him closed the distance.

Dagore took stock of his weapons. Didn’t include the knife in the box at his side.

If the gate were locked. If the hinge stuck. If he dragged a foot at all.

He’d have to fight at least one Eye. Probably more. In the middle of Hiane.

Moment of truth.

Would someone die in the streets, or—

He slid his free hand from his pocket, turned casually toward the gate, pushed it. Like he did it all the time. Like he lived there.

The gate swung open. Soundless. Without resistance.

Dagore strode down the path, didn’t glance into the long-leaved plants on either side. Certainly didn’t look behind himself.

Threw the gate closed behind him.

It didn’t bounce off anyone, as far as he could tell. He walked until the path curved, then slid between bushes and studied the area.

No one came.

Some night bird hooted, then shrieked. The longer he stood, the louder a susurrus of sounds rose around him.

Figures. Even the bugs in the rich neighborhood sounded nice. Not at all like they’d burrow under his skin and breed if left unattended.

After several long counts, he finished the job without seeing anyone—including the bird and the bugs.

The streets were empty when he left.

Even when he walked home, relieved of the box, and swaggered through the city as though asking for an incident, his path remained clear.

It should have been a win. He should have gone home and slept with a job well done behind him, but instead he lay awake long after the sun rose. Imagining what else moved in his city that he couldn’t see. What Ky had Cima doing, to keep her so busy.

Throughout the day, as he moved through his Muckers, his thoughts wouldn’t ease. Something was off with this shipment. Elgin’s letter. The Eye, too interested. Ky, a little too tense, showing her fangs.

If it were just a one-off, he could let it go, but that wasn’t the feeling he got. Elgin would write again. Ky would pull him back. Once more he considered sending a runner for Cima. She had a way to put two and two together to find seven, and he could use her brain.

That same feeling told him if he sent for Cima again, he’d get one of the last two members of her crew. Gaudi or Ackles, always full of their respective brands of good-natured sunniness. He didn’t want that. Worse if either of them showed up at his doorstep, full of discomfort because Cima . . .

Cima was avoiding him.

His clever thief, as deceptively beautiful as the sea. Full of undercurrents that could drown a man. The gods had drowned—who was to say he could avoid the same fate?

Dagore had a knack of anticipating trouble. That ability to navigate unfriendly waters had taken him from the deepest mud of Muckers to the top of the predator-strewn waters of Broadside.

But, it turned out, he could still be surprised.

Didn’t much like that.

“Boss?” Murian tipped his head toward the knot of men ahead.

There was more work to be done. Something to uncover between Elgin and Ky. Plenty of dangerous waters to navigate. He couldn’t worry about Cima, not now.

He turned to Murian and inclined his head.

One set of shoals to navigate at a time. He’d navigated worse.

Dagore always saw trouble coming.

He hadn’t seen it in Cima.

Shit.

Marisa Wolf is a second-generation nerd whom started writing genre stories at six. At least one was good enough to be laminated, and she's been chasing that high ever since. Over the years, she's taught middle school, been headbutted by an aligator, earned a black belt in tae kwon do, and finally decided to finish all those half-finished stories in her head.

She's currently based in Texas, though she lives in an RV with her husband and their two absurd rescue dogs, so it's anyone's guess as to where in the country she is.

Traitor to the Wolfguard’s Creed

by Gideon P. Smith

My tail twitches as blood soaks my brindle fur and weeps into the gaps between the oaken deck planks. Fortunately, the battle worn steel plates of my armor conceal my wound from the others. But even lying here, full length on the ship’s deck, as the last strands of summer sun dapple the rolling forests on either side of this river, I cannot get warm. Behind us, the crackle of the city burning taunts me.

My failure.

Choking, charred particles of smoke irritate my snout, and the creak of wood on swollen river vibrates through this old barge we are fleeing on, as if it is about to split in two. I recite the first stanza of our creed.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

It gives me focus. Reminds me how to survive.

Safety. This barge is not fit to transport my masters. It’s crude and smells of tar and fish guts and lacks any defensive capability. If we don’t get off this boat, we’re all dead.

I look toward the stern. My wolfpack huddle together in solidarity. But they are not doing much better than me. The fighting was so intense, we all were injured one way or another. Velva, my mate, has a thick once-white bandage around her thigh, but she is not concerned with herself. She licks the blood from Berhand’s fur. He’s the youngest. His neck is bloodied and his head lolls to one side. For a moment, her eyes lock with mine. Normally burning red, her pupils barely flicker. I know that look. She can’t save him.

I should go to him. He’s like a son to me. But I daren’t. They will see that I too am injured, and it does not do well for morale if the packleader is hurt. So I sit here alone. Quietly bleeding. Waiting for my master to summon me.

#

“Lupen, come here.” It is the king. Though his voice is hoarse from the battle, my heart leaps at his words, and I have to suppress the wag of my tail. There is something exciting when your master calls, no matter how old you are, or what it is for.

I pull myself up to stand on my two hind legs and swing my axe into its holster on my back. The oak deck creaks with my weight, twice that of a human, as I pad across to where the king, his generals, and advisers are standing, and I try not to limp in case anyone is watching.

They’re arguing, and I stand and wait obediently, as I must, until asked for my opinion. My blood puddles on the floor beneath me. I’m beginning to feel lightheaded.

“So, how do you think the mages got inside the city walls?” the king finally asks.

I’m confused by the question at first. I had expected us to discuss what to do now.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

But the humans don’t operate by the creed, no matter how many times I cite it. They are too smart for it. And they do not listen to a wolf. They think because they freed us from the mage’s slave mines generations ago, they are somehow better than us. Or maybe it is the loyalty we give them for that kindness that makes them think that. But humans are imperfect. They always are more concerned with yesterday, or tomorrow. Never today. It is a hard concept for me. Yesterday is now fixed, tomorrow cannot be known. Today is all that matters.

“Someone opened the gates,” I say, in human-tongue. It is self-evident. No need to discuss. We should discuss today.

“Yes, but who?”

I start to raise a claw, to point him out, but the king stops me with a glare. He knows what I am going to say. I’ve already said it, and he wouldn’t listen then.

“No one in my council, obviously.” The rebuke is evident in his tone. “But is yesterday’s traitor elsewhere on this boat?”

The king still focuses on yesterday. And as he will not listen, what more is there to say? So I wait for us to discuss today. The only thing we can change. But he misinterprets my silence for confusion.

“If we have a traitor amongst us, we need to know who it is before they do us more harm.” The king shakes his head. He looks tired, a slight hunch to his normally erect frame, his skin hanging looser. “You must learn to think more like a human, Lupen, if you are ever to fulfill your potential as a wolfguard.” The king turns away and for now I am forgotten. They return to their bickering.

But I am certain who the traitor is, as sure as if I’d seen him do it. I can smell him. I smelled the anxious sweat under his perfumes the moment he arrived in court. And I whispered it to the king, even then. And the king laughed and said I was too suspicious of strangers. So I know I need more than just this man’s bad smell to point my claw at if I am to have the accusation believed. Even as he stands there, by the king’s side, advising him.

But, for now, I have more urgent things to figure out.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

Someone has to attend to the real needs. To focus on today. I survey who is left, trying to assess our chances and who might be most useful. The royal family, the king and his son, still a pup, of course, though they are not of much practical use. The generals, who are similar. Timmons, the visiting diplomat, who somehow got himself swept up in our escape. His eyes dart everywhere. Some knights, who spend more time polishing their weapons than using them. A few sailors to steer the barge but who have never seen battle. The quartermaster and some servants, all of whom would die first in any attack. And my wolfpack, the only fighters in the group. Or what’s left of them.

And then there is death. It’s normal to see one or two specters as I make my way through the city. Following an old woman, or hovering over a beggar. But here, on this barge, the deathspecters walk behind almost every human. All the more indication we need to get off. For the younger and uninjured, the deathspecters are but wisps. Mere suggestions of smoke, trailing behind the mortal. But for the king, his generals, and the knights that saw battle—them being the ones that are old, or weak, or injured—the specters are taking more and more solid form. Not that the humans can ever see them. Until the ghouls greet them as their last breath fades.

“What is it, wolf?” I’ve stared at one of them so long that it’s noticed me. Its face is woven into human features, but there is something off. Like dead skin has been stretched over a squirming mass of maggots and cockroaches that struggle to escape. I look away, hoping the deathspecter will forget me, return to following the knight he was so interested in. After all, deathspecters don’t normally bother us and we don’t bother them. But it’s not to be. It stares at me, its hollow eyes.

“This one’s almost ours,” it informs me, its voice the scrape of dead leaves across a tomb. I nod. Sir Giore took an incendiary-spell direct to the chest. His armor is caved in and scorched. His skin desiccated and brittle. I can hear his heart thudding. Languishing. The dry vessel trying to keep beating though half the blood’s been boiled out of him by the mage’s magic.

“Don’t fear, no reason for me to follow you. There is no afterlife for magic-borne beings, you’re not human enough. And yet…” It comes near, as if sniffing me. As if detecting something unusual.

“What is it?” I ask, backing up.

But the deathspecter doesn’t answer, it just smiles wickedly and returns to following Sir Giore. It’s then that my hackles lower. I hadn’t even noticed they were up. Instinct. But the deathspecter never quite takes its eyes off me again. Clearly it knows something, and I do not wish to think about what it could be.

“Who are you talking to?” It’s one of the king’s knights. Sir something. He’s too young for me to remember his name. Never seen a day of service before today. His sword remains unbloodied, his armor untarnished. I saw him quivering in the rear.

“He’s hallucinating,” the royal physician states with certainty and a dismissive wave of his pudgy fingers, though I have no idea why. He knows nothing of wolfguard.

And I’m not. But there’s no point correcting him. He’ll only get upset. And they won’t believe me if I tell them about the deathspecters. Another human foible. They are so dependent on their eyes, they only believe what they can see. They do not believe what others can sense, hear, or smell.

“Lupen.” My attention snaps back to the king. “We plan to stay on the barge another three days. That should take us far enough from the castle that we should be safe. Somewhere here.” The king gestures vaguely at an area of the map unfolded in front of them. But I don’t understand maps. Squiggles on paper. How can this represent land? Nevertheless, I do understand this much. That everywhere he is pointing are parts of the map beyond where there are detailed squiggles, and if that is where we are, then we must already have travelled far enough downriver to be inside the enemy’s territory. To lands we have not mapped. And we are sailing blind.

“We will then land,” the king continues, “on the south bank and head to Hinderoth, to seek refuge in my brother’s court.”

It’s a mistake. South bank is where the enemy is. South to Hinderoth is where they will expect us to go. It’s too obvious. They’ll be waiting for us. And we’re already too far into their lands. Three days will only take us farther in.

The wolf creed runs through my head like a spinning top. Except instead of slowing, it’s spinning faster and faster as we delay.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

Safety first. It’s how we keep the pack alive.

“We should disembark now. Go north into the mountains,” I tell them.

There is silence.

I know I am right. We should get off this boat today as quickly as possible. We do not even know where it is taking us. We should go north into the mountains where there is shelter.

“Incredible,” Timmons says, finally. “I had heard that they could speak, but I did not know that you allowed them to opine. Do you also let these creatures dine at the same table as you?”

The king coughs. “We do not.” The king turns to me looking me straight in the eye. Instinctively I hang my head and tuck my tail between my hind legs. “Lupen, it is not your place. We do not need an opinion. I am telling you the plan so the pack is ready, that is all.”

I know he is right. It is not my place to offer advice, but I dislike this plan. It is the wrong plan. Though I admit part of the reason I dislike it is because I heard Timmons suggest it. He still smells strange. But there’s also something intangible about him that I do not trust. I look from the king to the generals. The specters of death hovering behind them laugh hyenalike as they each nod their heads in agreement with the plan.

“Do you think the mages are following us?” the king asks, to no one in particular.

I open my mouth to say something.

“Not a chance,” a general to my left says. “We slipped away unseen.” And Timmons fervently agrees.

But they are following us. I can hear them running through the woods and along the banks, magic crackling and it’s not getting farther away. If anything, it’s getting closer.

But beyond that, I can hear something else. A distant roar. Unlike the magic users, whom I fear because I know them, this makes me even more nervous. I can’t tell what it is.

But this time I stay silent. I have already spoken out of turn once, and for now, the king favors Timmons’ opinion. Now is not the time to raise something I am not even certain of. But I will watch Timmons. That much I am certain of.

#

When the king’s council finally tires of talking and disperses, Timmons tries to slip away. But I follow. Not that there are many places to hide on a barge, but I know he is up to something, and I swear I will not let him out of my sight. He pauses by some whale-oil barrels and I pause by the main mast. He ventures onto the prow, and I follow him up the steps, as if enjoying the breeze ruffling my fur. He circles back to the main deck, stopping unexpectedly midship.

I hesitate.

There is nothing for me to pretend to do. In his hand he holds a mirror. I doubt he is here to fix his hair, and so I can only assume he plans to use it to communicate with someone on the shore. But I still can’t prove it.

He turns. He has that upturned twist to his lip. He knows I’m following. “You there, cur. Tell one of the servants to bring me water.”

It’s just an excuse to get rid of me. To send me on an errand and give me no reason to return.

I have little choice but to comply. And so I turn, but I do not seek out a serving boy as he requested. Instead, I head for the quartermaster myself. This way I will have a reason to return. I will take Timmons the water myself and stand by his side.

When I request the water from the quartermaster, he eyes me suspiciously, sticking his fat, greasy thumbs in his rope belt.

“No water for your kind,” he replies.

The river’s water is undrinkable. It has the Eyre in it. So we only have what we brought. And this voyage was unplanned and we are unprepared. The supplies that were already aboard the barge constituted only enough food and water for one day feeding everyone. The king of course must eat and drink. His son too. But before a cup would be passed to us, not much better than dogs in their eyes, they will quench the thirst of every general, advisor, knight and sailor first. Even Timmons. After all, he is our guest.

And even now, even having seen how we fought for them, some of the younger knights eye me fearfully. They think I will go mad and take the water. And they’re not wrong. I could overpower them. I want to. Though wolfguard can go without water for weeks, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it. Every natural inborn instinct tells me to snatch it from them. But I would never do that. The loyalty, or love, or whatever you want to call it, that binds me to the king is too strong. I must obey. I must think of the whole pack, humans too, before my individual needs.

“It’s for Master Timmons.”

“I’ll be watching,” is all that the quartermaster says, as he ladles a bowl of water and hands it to me.

Careful not to spill a drop of my precious cargo, I hurry up the boat’s length back to Timmons before he can do too much of whatever mischief he has planned. As I hold out the bowl toward him, Timmons’ face flushes red, his eyes narrow. My breath catches, shocked by the force of his glare and I look away, unable, nay, unwilling for now, to meet such a challenge.

He snatches the bowl of water from my grasp. “I said to send the serving boy with it.” His voice scrapes, high, thin and reedy. Spittle flies from his lips. “Do you expect me to drink from a dog bowl? Something that has been in your filthy claws?”

I watch, unable to stop him, as he tosses the entire bowl of precious water on the deck. I could have drunk it. My wolfpack could have. My cracked tongue burns. For a moment, I consider getting down on all fours and licking it up. But it seeps into the cracks between the planks. It is gone. Wasted. And in its place fire fills my chest. I can feel the pinch of my own claws digging into the pads of my front paws. My right hind leg goes back, ready for the pounce. People are staring. At both of us. And I struggle to get back in control.

“I am sorry, Master Timmons,” I manage, though the tension in my jaw threatens to snap my own teeth to their roots as they press against each other.

“Master Timmons? Master Timmons?” He thinks I have insulted him. It is not an insult. I address all humans with the honorary title of Master. Even though the king is my only true master. “I am the Grand Emissary, dog,” he says, smacking his hand on the barge’s edge rail to punctuate each word.

Humans always worry about names, words, titles. Pointless things. You can see it in their language. It emphasizes naming things. But a slipper can warm your feet, or it can be thrown at your head. Same object, same human-name. “Slipper.” Different actions. In our tongue we would name it Footwarmer-thing or Throw-thing, depending how it was being used. Wolfguard only care about action. Intent. Not title.

The king asked who betrayed us. But I know. The man is standing in front of me. And I want to rip his throat out. But I must not disobey the king. I will not betray his trust.

One thing I do know, though, is that the more a human focuses on words and titles, the more I find they lie. The less trustworthy they tend to be. Timmons focuses greatly on titles and things and time that is “not-today.” And that is the other reason I do not trust him. The “thing” that he is may be “Grand Emissary,” but what is his value? What is his action? What is his intent? We have a word for his kind in wolf’s-tongue but there is no direct translation.

“I will have the serving boy bring you fresh water,” I say, but I cannot keep the growl out of my voice. And I slink away. I have lost. For now.

#

I return to the wolfguard. Head hung. Defeated. And trying my best to hide it.

“We wait,” I say, as they look to me for news. I don’t know what else to tell them. It is not a lie, but I cannot tell them the whole truth. Not yet. First, I need to solve this. The plan is a bad one. They will know it is a bad plan. And I need my wolfguard content and ready. Not scared or angry. But Velva eyes me. She’s been my mate for all of my adult life and she knows when I am unhappy. When I am hiding things. And then I also remember the wound hidden under my armor and try to stand up straighter so she will not notice how I favor my left.

“I do not like this boat,” she growls finally, in wolf’s-tongue. I wish she would not express such feelings of dissent, but she’s only expressing what I feel. What all of us wolfguard are feeling. We wolfguards don’t travel by boat. I’m as uncomfortable on this wallowing raft on the water as any of them. I want my hind paws planted firmly on ground, ready to fight. But I also do what I am told. So, here I am.

When the mages attacked, using magic to animate the very trees and mountain rocks to fight against us, we scrambled here, escaping on the only ship we could find. It went against everything. Wolfguards don’t run. Don’t hide. Not when there is battle still to fight, still life in our bones. We are raised to fight. Nothing else.

But that is not the human way.

They have us to fight for them when they want to make a stand. But sometimes they choose not to fight at all. Sometimes their pack masters even abandon the pack. That is what we did. We couldn’t take everyone. Only the members of the royal household. But that doesn’t sit well with me. And as we slipped from the city in the darkness, leaving the citizens to their fate, I could hear the screams of the human pack members we left behind as the mages used magic to melt their minds and their homes. Turning our human brothers into monsters, dark creatures to serve them. Perhaps it is because the humans cannot hear as well as we can, that my masters could do this. But I still hear the screams.

“Will we be all right, Lupen?” It is the young prince. He has a sweet nature, but pale, blonde and stick-thin; he is a sickly-looking child under the best of circumstances. He is followed everywhere by fussing nursemaids. He has come to stand by us, for reasons known only to him, followed by one such nursemaid who gently pats his shoulder trying to reassure his concern.

I wrinkle my nose. I’ve never understood the humans’ fascination with the future or their belief that we can predict it. If he were a wolfguard cub I would tell him to let tomorrow take care of itself.

But this prince is a human cub, and he is looking for more reassurance than his nursemaid can supply. Unfortunately, he’s looking in the wrong place. Wolfguard don’t lie.

Velva surprises me by stepping forward and saving me. “We follow the king. The king knows what he is doing.”

“She speaks truth,” I tell him, relieved. These words feel right, though I still have a nagging doubt. Not about the king, but about his advisors.

Velva is a wise mate. Her words are what this man-cub needed to hear. He even smiles. She would make a wonderful mother. And my chest tightens, as I know that is what she wants. She told me she wanted a cub the night before all this. And I promised her I would give her one. And then the mages arrived and disrupted all our plans. It was from tumbling in sweat-soaked sheets we had both arisen when the city’s attack alarm rang out.

And I notice her paw held protectively over her abdomen. It is too early to know if the seed caught, but I wonder. Has it already happened? Is there something she has not yet told me? Something good in all of this darkness?

“I trust you, Lupen,” the prince tells me, forcing me to re-focus on him. “I know that, with you and your wolfpack to protect us, we will be safe.”

I feel the weight of this responsibility too settle on my shoulders. I only hope he is right. We may not be enough. But the boy is young and uninjured and not even the wisp of a specter follows him about this barge. Death is not looking over his shoulder. And that is a relief. Maybe that is also the hope in all this darkness.

#

The days pass and, though I repeatedly raise my concerns to the king—much to my increasing frustration—we do as Timmons suggested. We stay on this death boat. The distant roar that I have been hearing for days is no longer distant. But how to get the humans, who still cannot hear the roar, to heed a warning about a threat I do not recognize or even understand? They just don’t listen. And as we float helpless down this river we only seem to be getting slowly, ever closer.

It is dawn on the third day when Velva shakes me early from sleep. It is Berhand. I kneel by his side. Flies buzz around his wound, drawn to it by the smell. He’s alive, but he’s rotting. Velva looks at me. She knows what must be done. This is no way to go. Better that he be put out of his misery. Under normal circumstances, at the barracks, we would have had a more humane way to end it for him. A last meal. Whatever was his favorite. Or a quaff of ale. Laced with strychnine. No pain. A nice meal, then, nothing. Quick. Eternal sleep.

“We don’t even have water. Much less ale,” I mutter. I don’t mention the poison, but of course we lack that too. And so we must end this in some other way. And as packleader that unfortunate duty falls to me. His eyes flutter and he looks up at me. He’s fading.

“Make it quick,” he growls. It’s all he asks. Unlike a human who would see the deathspecter and try to bargain with them. Pray. Beg. Try to delay death. A wolfguard would never do such a thing. Life is life. Death is death. One continuum. There is no point bargaining. One may as well ask for the sun not to rise tomorrow. Perhaps that’s why the deathspecters don’t follow wolfguard. No deals to make. Or perhaps it’s because, just as in life, we don’t possess anything of value to offer.

Velva turns away as I lean in, ready to snap his neck with a quick powerful twist of my jaws.

“Would this help?” I freeze. The prince has appeared as if from nowhere. He’s slipped the company of his nursemaid. He holds out his own canteen of water towards me. He must have heard me muttering about water. His eyes are sunken in their sockets. He’s getting dehydrated on the rations. Behind him a deathspecter is starting to take shape, grey wisps of smoke curling around his 9-year-old neck. He must feel the thirst. He should drink the water himself.

I shake my head. “It is too late for that.” And without the poison to add, it would just cruelly prolong the inevitable, though I don’t think the prince realizes that’s what we needed it for.

But he continues to stand there, watching.

“Look away, young master. This is no moment for you to watch.” And as he turns, I bend and swiftly lock my jaws around Berhand’s neck. My friend. My battle ally. But the debt goes even deeper than that. His father died taking an arrow for me. When he died, I promised him I would look after Berhand, his only son. And now look at me. I feel the crunch and I give a quick twist. The air whistles fetid from his nostrils. It is over.

As one, my wolfguard and I throw back our heads in the death howl, but mine is cut short by a hard kick to my haunch that knocks me to the ground.

“Shut up, stupid mangey dogs!” The face of the human nightwatch to whom the foot belongs is puffed and red in anger. “The last thing we need is you giving our location away.” He glances at Berhand. “Now throw that dirty carcass overboard before the flies get any worse.”

“They’re honoring their dead,” the prince says. Which is fortunate for the nightwatch, as the prince’s words cool my anger just enough that I stop myself from rearing back and ripping the nightwatch’s head from his shoulders.

“Well, your highness,” the nightwatch says, with only a trace of reticence, “they should do it quietly.”

“That is not their way,” the prince replies. “I wonder, will you act so brazen if it were me?”

And with that, he throws his head back and howls. His howl is unintelligible, of course, not knowing our tongue. Almost comical. But my heart still swells and we join him in the death cry. He has found a way for us, even in the face of ignorance. I have never known a human to give us such respect.

However, the moment is shattered as a shout goes up. I turn. The boat has rounded a bend and I see at last what the roar I have been hearing for days is from. A great cliff of water. And we are going to sail right over it.

There are no side tributaries we can turn towards and escape through. And finally I understand. This is the trap. This is where they will spring it. The moment they have been waiting for. Now we have to land. And though, when I look out to the south bank I can no longer hear the scurrying of the mages or the crackle of magic as they animate rock and forest, above the roar of the churning waters, I know they are there. It is battle instinct. Even if I hadn’t been able to smell them. The odd mixture of smoke and curdled milk that betrays the working of magic, I would have bet my firstborn that they were there hiding. Waiting for us to land. Because that’s what I would have done.

#

“I am the high knight of the royal house!” Sir Giore’s face is almost purple. The idea that a mere wolfguard would question his orders is preposterous to him.

Why are humans so focused on titles and their place in the hierarchy? The only point to a leader is the survival and success of the pack. What difference who leads if all dead?

Safety, water, shelter, food.

“We should land on the north bank,” I repeat, the immediacy of our danger lending power to my stubbornness.

“It is the king’s orders,” he snaps, before turning and stalking away. No doubt he has armor to polish. He’ll need it.

The barge is now swarming with deathspecters, most almost fully formed. There are so many of them, it is surprising they do not spill over the sides and fall into the water. But they scurry along the ballast, their hooklike hands hanging from the mast and clinging to every crack or space on the sides. I can hardly see the deck for the crush of them as I wade through them towards my wolfpack, the deathspecter’s cold wet skin and the stench of rot and death soaking from them into my fur.

From the far end of the boat, the wolfpack await me, all eyes turned toward me. But they know from the way that I slink that I do not bring good news.

“We are to land on the south bank and head for Hilderoth,” I inform the pack.

There is howling and yipping.

“It is the wrong decision.” Velva bites off each word with the snap of her jaws.

I turn to her in shock. She has never questioned one of my orders before. Not in front of the wolfpack. “It is the king’s command.”

“It is still wrong,” she repeats, though with less conviction. And now all wolfpack eyes are upon us. Waiting. To see what I or she will do.

The last time a wolfguard broke the creed and disobeyed the wolfleader I was only a cub myself. My father was wolfleader then. It had been a minor infraction, but an infraction nonetheless. My Uncle Kyrin, a regular wolfguard, had dared to question a command from a human packleader three times. Refused to follow it. My father’s face had been grim and in a flurry of fur and teeth he had leapt, and, as per the code, the entire pack followed him as they had ripped the fur and teeth from the oathbreaker’s body. My father’s snout was still soaked in his brother’s blood when he emerged and stood in front of me. “Never question a human packleader,” he had told me. I knew he had not wanted to kill his brother. But there had been no choice. And Kyrin knew what the consequences would be when he broke the code.

“It is the king’s command!” my voice, normally strong, deep, is barely a hiss.

I look at Velva, begging her not to force me to make the terrible choice my father had faced. Her paw moves protectively over her abdomen, and I catch her scent. She smells different. Suddenly, I understand. It is instinct that is driving her. She is not thinking of her own life. She speaks for two. The sound of the barge’s bottom grating on the stones of the bank interrupts us, and the barge rocks as it comes suddenly to a stop. I struggle to keep my footing. For a moment, Velva locks eyes with me. A direct challenge. But she is a true wolfguard, a loyal mate, and she knows our code as well as I do. The moment passes and she bows her head in submission.

“See you on the other side of the battle,” is all she says, and then she is gone, leaping through the spray and onto the bank, her injured leg, slowing her, and I realize, with such a wound, with the battle to come, this is likely the last time I will see her. And I did not say goodbye. Or that I am sorry. Or that I wish she’d chosen a better mate. Or that she would have been a fearsome mother. Or any of the other things I should have.

And that is the moment they attack.

#

We have driven the first wave back, and I am making slow progress inland. Methodically, inexorably, I stride forward, swinging my axe in great arcs, reaping my way through the enemy and they fall like so much harvested corn. Mages, Fyrfew tree-creatures and rock-monsters all tumble before me. The forest fills with the stench of mage’s blood, fresh split wood and the sounds of the mage’s screams and the clatter of shattering rock. I am hopeful. We can do this. We are breaking through. And then a mage-horn sounds on the crest of the hill east of us. Reinforcements. Our only hope is that in the chaos of battle the new arrivals do not know where to focus their attack. Where our king is.

But that’s not to be.

“Over here! They’re over here!” Timmons stands tall atop a rock, staff in hand, blazing a golden light. That’s why I had smelled traitor on him. The lingering smoke of magic. He was a mage this whole time. It is for this moment, the final moment of his betrayal, that I have kept him close. Within reach. I just hope that I am quick enough. I leap atop of the rock beside him and with one sharp snap I lock my powerful jaws around his neck. He struggles, of course. Squealing. A quick jerk, and a satisfying crunch as I snap the vertebrae and his body goes limp. I toss his dead carcass aside, turning to the king who, finally, nods in acknowledgement at what I’ve said all along. I’m unable to contain a roar of satisfaction. Of victory. And then an arrow thuds straight into the king’s eye. Slowly, he sinks, folding unceremoniously into an awkward heap, face down in the mud. There is no doubt. He is gone. My victory roar turns to a death howl. The other wolfguard echo. And then there is chaos.

The humans on our side. The knights, the servants. Break. Flee. Abandon us. Some of the knights flounder back into the water, swimming away from the banks and sinking, drowning as their armor weighs them down and drags them under. Those few servants or sailors that try to swim and can stay afloat are carried rapidly by the current and flung, screaming, over the waterfall. The rest of our contingent scatter, scrambling along the bank and running east or west or into the forest, but all are rapidly picked off by arrows or Fyrfew tree roots magically animated, darting out and impaling them. Only the king’s boy sits huddled in the mud, clutching his father’s dead body. A deathspecter gleefully clings to the young boy’s back, licking his neck.

A mage barrels towards him. Five great oaks, freshly animated, sprint at his side. One mage I might have handled, but with an animated forest? And if I am honest, in my current state, even one mage may have been too much for me. My side throbs. With the physical effort of the battle my earlier wound has re-opened and blood now freely flows down my flank.

All is lost.

And then I see Velva. Leaping up from the underbrush she thrusts her spear deep into the mage’s entrails, lifting him up clear from the earth. His death scream seems to shudder through the trees as his magic fails and they fall, like so much dead lumber, at his side. My Velva. My chest warms with pride. And then with one last thrust of his mage’s staff the mage impales her on a column of flame.

It’s like the world stops.

Suddenly, I understand the human obsession with yesterday. If only so that I do not have to live this moment. If I could just turn back time and make this untrue.

Velva sinks to the forest floor, a strange squelching gurgle dripping from her jaws. Futilely she paws at her abdomen, as if there is anything she can do to protect it. Her eyes are glassy as she looks back towards me and I see the hope perish, leaving behind only a twisted visage of bitter regret.

“Run,” she mouths across the distance between us. The hellfire in her eyes burns out. She falls. There is nothing for me to do, but to howl to acknowledge my loss. Her death. The howl has never hurt so much.

From the surrounding hills I hear my lower-species brethren echo it back to me.

I’m in a daze. Everywhere there is death.

And then I hear the hopeless, broken-hearted sobbing of the boy.

I feel so heavy inside. I don’t want to live. To go on. But perhaps I can save him at least. That is my duty. But the forest is alive with mages and rock-monsters and Fyrfew. I recite the mantra. It has always guided me.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

Safety yes, but I feel like I am being torn in two. After all, wolfguard do not run. There is more battle to fight.

But Velva was right. Much as I want to stay. Wreak vengeance for her. Running is my only option, if I am to save the boy. And I know she would want me to try. Futile as it may be. I will listen to Velva. It is time to run.

I turn and with a single bound land in the dirt beside the boy. I pick him up with my jaws, by the collar of his shirt, keeping my arms free for battle. Looking south, east, and west, there are only bodies of already fallen knights and wolfguard. My family. My comrades.

And live enemies. Who are getting closer by the second.

No. Though it goes against even more instincts than running, there is only one choice. I turn and run at full speed back into the icy river water, the boy swinging from my jaws.

The water is deep. Far deeper than it looks. And my hind paws are quickly swept off the bottom. I must swim. I reach far with my front paws and pull hard with every fiber of my battle-trained muscles, trying to make for the far shore. North. It is our only sanctuary.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

My biceps burn as stroke after stroke I pull as hard as I can, thighs kicking. But it is no good. The farther I get from the bank, the harder and swifter the current, and soon it drags us both under and westward toward the falls. Every time I surface, gasping for breath, the boy still clutched in my jaws, I can hear the roar of the churning water as it flies over the edge, ever closer. Though I have never thought of deathspecters as corporeal, the boy’s deathspecter seems to be doing everything it can to drag us under. It clings to him like so much extra dead-weight, and I can feel its icy fingers scratch across my eyes, it yanks and pulls at the boy trying to wrest him from my jawgrip.

And then we are airborne. Ourselves thrown out and over the waterfall. The deathspecter’s laugh, cackles in my ears, even above the roar of the water. Instinctively, I curl myself into a ball around the boy. If the landing is onto rocks I will surely die, every bone in my body shattered, but maybe I can yet save the boy. Use my body as a cushion for him. If he can even swim, he may stand a chance. A slim one. The air whistles by for what seems like an eternity, and then, just as my mind begins to believe the lie that maybe we will fall forever, I hit the water.

The pain is everywhere at once. I feel as if I have been struck by the enemy’s battering ram. All breath is driven from my body. And then I am tumbling, choking on water.

Miraculously, still alive.

The boy has slipped free from my jaws and I flail about blindly, trying to find him, to grab him with my paws. My arm connects with something soft and I drag him back in towards me as I right my body and force my legs beneath me. Stumbling, blinded by the weight of water cascading down onto us, I drag us both back through the wall of falling water, until we emerge on the other side. Here, there is a small overhang and a rock bowl carved out by the falling water. Hidden by the curtain of the water, it offers us a temporary refuge.

We lie there recovering our breath. My axe, his pack, temporarily cast aside. I can still smell the mages. Hear wisps of shouts, and splashes, the splitting of wood as they reanimate the forest to help them in their search. I try to think what to do now.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

We cannot stay here long. There is no food, and no real shelter from the continuous water spray. But I know they cannot see us here. For now at least we are safe.

My left paw throbs. It hangs useless. Broken. I hadn’t even noticed. The rush of battle, survival, is a powerful thing. I turn to check the boy for injuries. Standing him up, he shivers, soaked to the skin, but there are no broken bones, not even a cut, or a bruise. I protected him well.

He hugs me, his chest shuddering, but I do not think it is just the cold, though his clothes are soaked through. Trying to remember how the nursemaids did it I place my right paw on his back and pat, but it feels odd, and so I settle for licking his hair as I would with a frightened cub. It seems to soothe him as the chattering of his teeth slowly stops.

And then, to my surprise, he steps back, saying, “We’ll travel south to my uncle.” The deathspecter behind him throws back its head, the corners of its mouth tearing, so wide is its grin. It shimmers as it takes even more corporeal form, its long bony fingers wrapping around the boy’s throat.

It is the wrong plan. But I turn to pick up our things. To comply. Even though I know it is wrong. After all, he is the human. A master. But this does not feel right. It is open fields all the way to Hilderoth and the mages will be looking for any survivors headed there. There will be rock-monsters on the road and Fyrfew by the sideways.

And more than that, something has changed within me.

“We should look for cover,” I begin, but he cuts me off, exactly as his father would have.

“We will go to my uncle’s,” he repeats the stupidity, and this time anger swells my chest.

It is absurd. This runt is not ready to be packleader.

Has he not seen they anticipated this and that is why all his kinfolk, our entire pack, are now slaughtered? I think of Velva. She sacrificed everything. Her life. And more. So we could survive. I will not let that be wasted.

I pull myself up to my full seven foot. I tower over his four-foot frame. “No. You are a cub, unready to lead. We will head north into the mountains.”

Every fiber of my soul screams against this.

What am I doing?

To question a human’s command is blasphemy enough. But no wolfguard has ever spoken back to a human like this, let alone tried to assert dominance. But he is young enough he does not yet know that what I am doing goes against every element of the code we have. That I am now the outcast. The wolf creed breaker. Traitor.

His eyes glisten and his lip trembles and I meet the challenge of his eyes with my own. I am determined. I will not look away. I will not submit.

Eventually, his eyes turn to the side, his shoulders slump. He submits.

With a silent scream, the deathspecter hanging over him seems to melt, wither, and disappear in a curling of smoke, and I know I have done the right thing.

But I can tell by the scent of the boy’s breath that he is unhappy. And I cannot completely let go of my old training. To please these humans. So I try to think what a human would like. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Guessing, I say:

“Maybe to—” the unfamiliar concept is still hard for me, so I sound it out, “—to-mo-rrow you will be ready.” At this, he brightens. I hear his heartbeat slow, calm. Strange, that something that is not now, that may never come, makes humans so happy. But if it does, who am I to complain? My job is the now. To lead this small pack and keep it safe. And maybe if he listens, one day he will be ready to lead and bring our pack back to victory. I look him in the eye once again. “First things first. Safety, water, shelter, food.”

THE END

Gideon P. Smith's short fiction appears in Apparition Lit, Stupefying Stories, Wyldblood, 100-Foot Crow, Troopers Quarterly, and in anthologies from Black Hare Press, Shacklebound, and Fairfield Scribes. He was a finalist for the 2023 NESFA Short Story Contest and the 2024 Writers of the Future Award. His nonfiction on the craft of writing has appeared through SFWA, Focus Magazine (BSFA), and Dan Koboldt’s Science in Sci-Fi, Fact in Fantasy. He currently serves as a slush reader for Diabolical Plots and Flash Fiction Online. More about his work can be found at gideonpsmith.com.

The Print Job

by Brian Trent

I.

The dead men had printed semi-automatics for their assault on the shop and, from the look of spent casings, must have fired off a thousand cheaply printed bullets. But their target had printed a monster of some kind, and there wasn’t much left of the gunmen by the time Miguel Falcón arrived on the scene.

He was released from the back of the NYPD cruiser. The December night was cold. The stink of blood and loosened bowels hit him right through his concealment visor.

“Four bodies,” Detective Rod Ventrella said, pointing to the abandoned parking lot. Holographic tape reading CRIME SCENE – DO NOT CROSS formed rectangles around corpses in the snow. “Looks like the work of a lion.”

Miguel stared. “It wasn’t a lion.”

“You can tell that at a glance?”

“Yeah.”

The detective raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“There are no lion tracks, for one thing.”

Ventrella considered the confusing pattern of footprints in the snowy, abandoned lot. Astoria, New York was like most cities nowadays: the loss of hardcopy stores had turned old parking lots into desolate, weedy glades. Saplings grew from cracks in the asphalt. A decaying store sat a hundred meters away.

Miguel adjusted his visor. “What happened here?”

“You tell us. I’m thinking this is the work of one of your business partners.”

“I’m not in that business anymore. Besides, I never dealt in weapons.”

Detective Ventrella laughed sharply. “Yeah, right.”

“Check my record, Rod.”

“Oh, I know it by heart. You never dealt in guns, that’s true. But you made lions, and I’d say those qualify as weapons.”

Another officer crossed the holographic tape to reach them. “Hey, Rod? Is this the guy?”

Ventrella jerked a thumb at Miguel. “Meet our fake-maker CI, in the flesh. He was just telling me this isn’t the work of a lion. And I guess he’d know; Interpol busted him two years ago for sending lion software to Africa.”

The younger officer blinked. “Sending lions to Africa? Why?”

“For the Maasai people,” Miguel muttered, glancing warily to the derelict building. “Their warriors fight lions as a rite of passage, traditionally.”

“Why not use actual lions, then?”

“Because all the real lions are dead or in zoos. And even if that wasn’t the case, the Maasai are being driven off ancestral lands by foreign developers. To keep some of their traditions alive, they asked me for a lion program.”

The younger officer viewed the woodsy lot with unease. “It could still be out here. Prowling around…”

The detective shook his head. “We’ve got drones searching for anything that large in the area. Fake-maker, how far can a printed lion get? What’s it using for power?”

Miguel sighed. “We don’t know it was a lion.”

“Whatever. Griffin. Manticore.”

“Both would still leave lion tracks. The only tracks I see are human. Why don’t you fill me in what you know?”

Ventrella folded his arms. “Patrol got the first call around 11 p.m. Witnesses reported lots of gunfire and screams. First unit on the scene found these guys.” He nodded towards the eviscerated bodies. “Each had an illegally printed semi-automatic.”

Miguel scratched an itch beneath his concealment visor and pointed to the derelict, ivy-strewn building. “And that?”

“Technically abandoned… but someone was living there. By the footprints, it seems the gunmen were approaching when our mystery tenant sent something out to meet them.”

“Show me what’s inside. And watch what you say in there. There could be cameras printed on every square inch of the place. My privacy—”

“Will be protected,” Ventrella said, slapping his shoulder. “Don’t worry, fake-maker. I wouldn’t risk my most valuable snitch.”

#

According to city records, the abandoned building had once been a shoe store—an astonishing waste in the days before people simply printed their own custom footwear. The mystery tenant had converted the place into an illegal printshop; toner cartridges filled old shoe racks, color-coded by type of raw—resins, advanced polymers, plastics, bioink, and various quick-dry multimaterials. At the heart of the operation were five industrial-sized assemblers—capable of printing and assembling complex machines using an array of extruders and articulated digits far more precise than human hands.

Walking around the shop, Miguel marveled at it all. The machines weren’t off-the-rack—whoever ran this shop had made impressive modifications, cobbling and welding different components so that they had a patch-and-stitch, Frankensteinian quality.

What the hell was being manufactured here?

Of course, most homes had 3D printers. Some even had assemblers. Clothing, household goods, toys, tools, meals… anything was feasible for at-home production. Yet some things were illegal to print. Weapons. Patented medicines. Sex dolls in defiance of likeness-rights… the list was lengthy.

“I take it you dusted for prints,” Miguel said.

“Sure,” Ventrella said. “So far, no matches.”

“His computer is missing.”

“Yeah?”

Miguel indicated a dusty rectangle on the workstation. “Looks like he grabbed it when he fled the attack.”

Detective Ventrella spat. “Great. I’ll put an APB out on a person carrying a computer and accompanied by a monster.”

Miguel continued his examination of the shop, glancing at boxes, the equipment, the calendar on the wall. And then he froze.

Squid.

The calendar’s picture for December was of a squid in the open sea. Drawing nearer, he flipped through previous months. More squid. Tiny ones and beached giants. There were even squid stickers and squid magnets littered about… and suddenly, he realized whose shop he was standing in.

Avenging Angel.

It’d been two years since Miguel’s arrest—two years since he’d cut a deal with prosecutors to avoid prison-time by becoming a criminal informant for the NYPD. He was valuable because he knew the underground community. As with any community, there were decent folks… and some very bad ones.

Avenging Angel was one of the decent ones. They’d never met in real life—only through chatrooms. Yet like Miguel, he didn’t deal in weapons, drugs, or the more twisted things that some customers asked for. In fact, his specialty was bugs. Ants and bees, specifically. Both were important for farmers: bees for pollination, ants for soil aeration and natural pest control. Yet both species had been devastated by some kind of fungus—urban legend blamed genetic engineering by companies who then pressured farmers into paying monthly subscription rates for pesticides and robotic insects. So Avenging Angel programmed and manufactured his ants and bees, selling them cheap to farmers who needed them.

His online avatar was a squid.

Ventrella drew near. “Anything?”

Miguel stepped back from the calendar. “No.”

“Really?”

“I’ve only been here a minute, Rod.”

The detective grinned. “You know I’ve got a sniffer program running, right? Your voice is sending out a big ‘anxious’ flag.”

“That’s because I’m fucking anxious.” He turned away, pretending to be interested in the rest of the shop.

Ventrella trailed him. “Any idea who operated here?”

“I’ll have to examine the cartridges,” Miguel said, keeping his voice neutral. “If I can narrow down what materials he liked to print with, that might provide a clue.”

“How do you know it’s a ‘he’?”

“I don’t.”

“Because you said ‘he’.”

“Rod, I’m just spit-balling here.”

“Or maybe you’re protecting one of your buddies.”

“I don’t have buddies like that anymore.” His wristpad chimed with an incoming text, and he glanced at the screen:

DAD, HOW MUCH LONGER WILL YOU BE?

GIVE ME SOME LEAD-TIME FOR DINNER,

OKAY?

He typed back:

BE HOME SOON. CAN YOU MAKE STEAK?

Then, catching sight of his belt-defying gut, added:

LESS THAN 500 CALORIES, PLEASE? THANKS HONEY.

Then he noticed something on the floor.

A balled-up paper had been thrown near a wastebasket. Miguel picked it up, unraveled it.

On blue-lined paper, Avenging Angel had sketched some kind of monster. It was a hideous bug-thing, vaguely cicadalike. Bloated body and multi-jointed legs. Beneath it, in barely legible handwriting, were the words:

FOR SIS

Ventrella peered over his shoulder. “What’s that?”

“Don’t know.” Miguel blinked, taking an eye-capture.

“I’ll get it to the evidence team.” The detective took the page from him. “But it sure wasn’t a bug that killed those gunmen.”

“You don’t know that. A bug can be printed out to the size of a tiger. There are legends…”

“Yeah, yeah… spare me the urban legends.”

“I’m just saying that—”

“You’re not really saying much of anything.”

“I’m doing my best here.”

“I don’t think you are, Miguel. You’re being cagey and—”

“Quiet!”

The detective stiffened, realizing his mistake.

Oh my God, Miguel thought, heart hammering. He used my name! If Angel is listening to us remotely…

For a moment, he dared to hope the response team had swept this place for cameras. It was standard procedure, after all, to secure a crime scene. No one wanted criminals spying on an ongoing investigation.

The truth, however, was that cops were woefully behind the times. They didn’t understand what was possible. Even if you swept for onsite cameras, there were other ways to . . .

His gaze fell on a mouse in the corner.

Only a few inches long. Furry body. Black eyes and pink nose.

It was staring at him.

Staring without blinking. Without breathing.

Then it scurried into a hole and was gone.

II.

“Dad, you okay?”

Miguel turned from his troubled reflection on the apartment window. “Sorry. You were saying?”

His daughter Alexis raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t actually. You’ve just been staring out the window for like an hour now.”

He backed away from the glass: Unit 639’s view of the eccentric landscape of hive apartments. Five thousand people lived in Philips Hive. The structure was an active print-site; industrial-grade print-cranes could stack a new unit in just hours. Even now, Miguel watched them at work like long-necked dinosaurs in the moonlight, laying repurposed concrete like strings of toothpaste from industrial-grade nozzles.

“Sorry,” he said. “Long day.”

Alexis studied his face. She was seventeen, slight of frame, and with features like her mother, but with her father’s pensive eyes. “Long day?” she asked. “Or bad day?”

“Don’t know yet.”

And the truth was, he didn’t. It was potentially bad that Ventrella had used his name at a crime scene. The whole point of wearing a concealment visor was to protect the identity of criminal informants; they even filtered your voice. Ventrella’s carelessness had put him at risk.

On the other hand, maybe the mouse had been a real, living mouse. And even if it had been an artificial eavesdropper, what of it? No one in the fake-maker community knew Miguel’s real name.

Maybe I’m safe.

His daughter gently kicked his foot. “Want to talk about it?”

“No,” he said, tousling her hair. “What I want is to enjoy dinner with you. Steak, right?”

Alexis put her hands on her hips, adopting a stance of mock annoyance. “You have to eat your salad first. We agreed I’m in charge of your diet, remember? You need to be good, Dad.”

“I always try to be good.”

He seated himself before a bowl of colorful leaves, sprouts, tomatoes, and roots. It was all grown on-site: the residents of Philips Hive had created the most elaborate community garden since Babylon. Working together, they’d transformed their rooftops into a forest of high-nutrition crops. Squash, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, peas, watercress, spinach… they even flourished down trellises and windowsills, bolstered by cheap printed glass for greenhouses to protect it all from New York winters. The yield was good. The trend was spreading to other hives, weening people off food-printer services that were always raising their subscription rates.

“What about the steak?” Miguel asked, munching the last of his salad.

“Yeah, yeah.” Alexis hopped to the foodprinter, loaded a meat cartridge from a Philips ReadyMeals box, and punched in a code for a sirloin.

The steak was smaller than he preferred. She’d printed it in a lattice pattern, too, making it less caloric, and added the words “TOO MUCH OF ME IS BAD FOR MY HEART” across the top.

“So how was your day?” he asked, cutting into the meat as Christmas music played in the living room.

“I decorated the Christmas tree. Pretty cool, huh?”

“It looks nice. How was school?”

“Had a biology test today.”

“And?”

“Aced it, I hope.”

#

FOR SIS

The words burned in his mind through dinner, and when he took a shower afterwards, they followed him there too. FOR SIS. It meant nothing to him. Did Avenging Angel have a sister? Why would he make a bug for her? More likely it was code for one of his clients. Why they wanted a hideous bug was anyone’s guess. There was an urban legend about a killer who put his victims into a dark room with 3D-printed spiders, and watched via night-vision cameras as they relentlessly bit, slashed, and chewed their prey to pieces.

Miguel was happy to help cops hunt down freaks like that. For his part, he’d specialized in making medical supplies. He hacked and cracked the DRM on a variety of health drugs and medical prostheses. Having grown up in poverty, and watching his own parents die as a result of being unable to afford essential treatments, he wanted to create a low-cost market for those who needed it. He’d assumed that’s what would do him in eventually. But no, it was the one-time lion job that put him in jail. His wife filed for divorce; last he’d checked, she’d remarried and was living in Chicago. Her old life—he and Alexis—deleted like a spam email.

He finished his shower and slipped into a terrycloth robe. In the hallway, the air smelled of something freshly printed. The door to his office was open.

“Alexis?” he called. “Are you using the printer?”

His question was met with silence. The only sound in the apartment, in fact, was the Christmas music.

Miguel strayed to his office and peeked inside. The assembler thrummed from a recent job. The coffeemaker had been pushed aside to expose the power outlet.

Alexis didn’t drink coffee. She’d have no reason to move it.

“Alexis?”

Heart squirming uncomfortably, he padded to the living room. He saw the half-decorated tree. Wrapped presents on the floor. A crate of ornaments still to be opened.

Miguel froze.

Alexis stood in the living room, but something else was there with her. A freakishly skinny, tall creature, pale as a maggot. It held her firmly by the arms, while a third arm clapped a rubbery hand over her mouth.

It had no face.

The eggshell-smooth head was interrupted only by a bulging mouth crammed with teeth like icicles.

Alexis’ eyes widened as she saw her father. She gave a stifled cry. The eyeless creature rotated its head in his direction.

Miguel edged into the room, hands out in a gesture of parley. “What do you want?”

The nightmare mouth split into an enormous grin.

“Traitor,” it whispered.

The blood drained from Miguel’s face. “Angel,” he stammered, “I know you’re a good guy. We’re on the same side, okay? I didn’t tell them anything! I would never… NO!”

The creature hurled Alexis through the living room window. She fell, shrieking, into the night.

Down thirty stories.

Screaming the whole way.

Miguel screamed, too, as he charged headlong at the intruder. Before he could bat it aside, before he could look down and see his daughter’s broken body, the creature collapsed into a useless, dead pile. Like a marionette snipped of its strings. Only the mouth continued moving, plastic lips toggling between two configurations as it spoke the same word over and over.

“Traitor.”

III.

Detective Ventrella stepped around the shattered glass and peered over the unit’s ledge. His breath came in short, wispy bursts. For half a minute he stared, and when he turned back he was pale.

“You’re very lucky,” he said. “Both of you are very lucky.”

Miguel had one arm around Alexis as they huddled on the couch, a space heater pushing against December’s chill. “It was a thirty-story drop yesterday,” he muttered.

The other person in the room was Ms. Evelynn Philips, landlord of Philips Hive. She paced unhappily around the apartment, taking stock of the damage. She finally halted and pursed her lips at the crumpled, three-armed nightmare on the floor. “What the hell is it?” she demanded. “What the hell did you print?”

“I didn’t print anything,” Miguel said.

“This… this thing…”

“Someone hacked my assembler. They sent this thing over the Internet.”

“You’re responsible for this!”

“No, he’s responsible for this!” Miguel pointed to the detective. “Rod, you used my name at the crime scene! You violated my anonymity!”

Ventrella sighed. “Before we get into accusations, please tell me how a 3D-printout can come alive and attack someone. Where did it get power?”

Miguel thought about the moved coffeepot in the office. “You can build something with a spring, or a series of springs, all wound up tight, to achieve an initial kinetic burst. That can give your creation enough time to scan for a better power source. A wall outlet would be its goal. It plugs itself in. Charges up. Then enacts the rest of its programming.”

Attacking a young girl! he thought, feeling sick.

Alexis, for her part, had a few bruises on her back, but was otherwise unharmed. The hive’s ever-busy printer-cranes had extended residential units directly beneath Unit 639’s balcony. Instead of a thirty-story plummet, she’d dropped just three meters to a freshly printed, blessedly flat rooftop. Over the next few days, other units would be added.

“Unplug your assembler,” the detective said simply.

“That’s not good enough, Rod! He knows where I live now! He can send anything he wants after us.”

Mrs. Philips clucked her tongue. “Then your presence here is a threat. You can’t stay!”

“You can’t just kick us out!” Alexis snapped.

The woman’s face flushed angrily, but Ventrella cut across the next syllables out of her mouth.

“Let’s not make any hasty decisions, okay?” the detective said. “But I do agree the Falcóns should get out of Dodge for a few nights.” He glanced to the shattered window, then to the body on the floor. “For what it’s worth, I’m truly sorry. I’ll put you and Alexis in a hotel on my dime. And I’ll assign a watch on the place.”

Miguel said nothing. He retreated to his bedroom and started packing for a few nights—clothes, toiletries, and his briefcase containing a portable assembler. His hands trembled. Once he was done, he opened his wristpad and went to his old fake-maker chatroom. Avenging Angel was still an active member—his profile said he’d last logged on fourteen hours earlier.

Miguel typed a private message and sent it:

YOU TRIED MURDERING MY DAUGHTER, YOU PIECE OF

SHIT. NOW I’LL MAKE IT MY LIFE GOAL TO CATCH YOU.

Ventrella dropped them off at a small, high-volume hotel by LaGuardia; Miguel grudgingly summoned a “thank you” and stalked away, ascending the stairs with Alexis rather than waiting for an elevator. Their rented room was on the fifth floor, but Miguel led his daughter up a single flight, then headed for the back stairs. To her astonishment, he steered her down to the rear parking lot.

Alexis hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. “Um, what’s with the James Bond routine?”

He put a finger to his lips. “We’re not staying in the hotel.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re not.”

“Don’t start sounding like Mom,” she hissed. “She pulled that crap all the time. ‘Because I said so.’ Obviously you said so. I want to know why.”

Miguel was trembling again. The memory of Alexis in the grip of that kill-machine—the sight of her being pitched out the window, the shattering glass, her scream… dear God in Heaven, his little girl’s scream…

“Ventrella means well,” he managed, “but he’s an idiot. He escorted us in a marked police cruiser straight from the hive. If anyone was watching us, they’ll know exactly where we checked in. So we can’t stay here.”

“Where are we going?”

“A safehouse.” He forged a smile. “You know, like James Bond.”

She didn’t smile in return. The night had begun to flurry, and in the falling snow she looked like a kid again. Hell, she was still a kid, and with the hat and mittens and pink coat she appeared young indeed. Alexis folded her arms folded over her chest, looking cross and scared. “Who is after us, Dad?”

“A very bad man.”

“A friend of yours?” she demanded.

“A criminal.”

“You’re a criminal,” she countered. “You always say you try to be good, but how good can a criminal really be?”

He darkened. “I’m not a criminal anymore.”

“You sent fucking lions over the Internet.”

“And limbs to people who needed them. Medicines to those who couldn’t afford them.”

“You don’t even know any of those people!”

“Who’s sounding like Mom now?”

“Maybe she was right!” Alexis shouted, and then caught the hurt look on his face. “I didn’t mean that.”

He dredged up his go-to response. “No worries.” An autodrive cardio-bus passed, people pedaling furiously on stationary bikes through their predawn commute.

Alexis wrapped her arms around him. “Mom left us. You stayed.”

“She still loves you.”

“The fuck she does.”

“Can you stop swearing, please?”

“Sorry.”

With her in his embrace, he checked the chatroom where he’d messaged Angel.

There was a response.

His jaw clenched as he read:

MEET ME AT TABBY’S ASS. 5:00 A.M. SHARP.

Miguel glanced at the time—it was 4:21 a.m. He closed the message as Alexis released him. She glanced meaningfully to his wrist.

“Spam message,” he said.

“You’re a terrible liar, Dad.”

“Sorry.”

“It was him, wasn’t it? The bad guy. He’s still coming after us.”

“I’m not going to let that happen.”

His daughter breathed slowly in the cold air. “By the way, where is this safehouse of ours?”

“About ten blocks that way.”

She stared along the road. “Ten blocks… wait. Seriously? Dad, you can’t be serious. You are serious, aren’t you?”

#

At the south entrance of Philips Hive, they crept inside and took the elevator all the way up to Unit 922. His knock was answered by a brunette woman dressed in sweater and jeans.

“My God!” the woman cried, drawing Miguel and Alexis inside. “I got your message! Please, come in!”

“It’s just for a couple days,” he assured her. “I wouldn’t have asked, but…”

The woman shook her head. “Stop that nonsense. You both stay as long as you need! We’re a community, right?” She grasped Alexis’s hand. “I’m Marilyn. I work with your father at the clinic.”

Alexis surveyed the apartment. It was a rooftop unit, extending onto the community garden’s greenhouses. “Interesting strategy, Dad. Our safehouse is the same place we left.”

“Who’d expect it?”

Marilyn ushered them to the couch. “Do you want coffee? Or hot chocolate? I can make breakfast if you want!”

“Marilyn, it’s okay. We just—”

“What happened?”

He hesitated. In the warmth of his coworker’s apartment, surrounded by so many growing things, it seemed dangerous to speak of the attack. Like uttering a demon’s name on holy ground.

“I can’t get into it now,” he said at last. “Just watch over my little girl, okay? I have to go.”

Marilyn blinked. “Go? Where could you possibly have to go right now?”

“Shopping, Marilyn. I have to go shopping.”

IV.

From outside, Tabitha’s Market appeared to be just another cheap-rate New York ferry running the East River, with garish lettering on the hull announcing TABITHA’S RIVER CROSSINGS. Below decks, however, the vessel was an illicit warehouse, a floor-to-ceiling maze of printer supplies. Most arrived from black markets, part of a shadowy supply chain delivered by submersible drone; lots of mechanical hands wheeling and dealing underwater like shuffling mahjong tiles in a smoky Chinatown den.

From the hive, Miguel took an autocab to Way’s Reef pier. There, he watched the Tabitha approach. Customers disembarked, others boarded, in silence.

He went below decks first, pretending to be interested in the market’s offerings while searching for his quarry. It was of little use; he didn’t know what Angel looked like. Didn’t know if Angel was a guy or gal. The market throbbed with fake-makers inspecting crates, looking for materials to create whatever they specialized in. Lots of printer cartridges. Lots of programs for sale.

At 5:00 a.m. sharp, Miguel went topside to the aft deck—Tabitha’s ass. Alone, he set his briefcase at his feet and stared across East River to the lights of Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and Scylla Point.

“I didn’t do anything to your daughter,” a voice growled.

Miguel spun around. He was still alone on deck.

“Where are you?”

“You’ll understand why I’m not going to answer that.”

The voice was coming from the floor, but the only thing on the floor was a discarded flyer. It took Miguel a moment to realize that the “flyer” was a chainmail mesh of tightly woven metallic links.

As he watched, a face rose up from the mesh.

Eyeless hollows. Simple boilerplate nose. Thin lips. Like a clay mask. Ever inventive, Avenging Angel must have boarded the ship at a previous stop and left this proxy communication channel. There were urban legends of people doing similar things… creating remote faces on bathroom mirrors, windshields, park benches…

The lips moved, the voice tinny from wherever it was being transmitted. “You’re a bigger dude than I thought, Miguel. I always pictured you as being skinny.” The eyes narrowed. “Never figured you for a snitch, either.”

“I provide crime scene consultation.”

“Justify it however you like.”

“There are bad apples in our ranks,” Miguel insisted.

“I’m not one of them.”

“You didn’t send some walking nightmare through my assembler?”

“Hell no!”

Miguel stared at the face. “Someone tried killing my little girl.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“You didn’t have a mouse watching me at your place?”

“Of course I did. I wanted to see what the cops were doing. But you were wearing a mask! I had no idea who you were… not until you threatened me online.”

Miguel steadied his breathing, mind racing. “Why did those gunmen attack you?”

“No goddam idea. I was sleeping when my perimeter alarm went off.”

“You killed them.”

“Of course I fucking killed them. They were obviously there to kill me. Self-defense is a natural right.”

“The cops think you sicced a robot lion on them.”

The face hesitated—and Miguel realized the movements were so lifelike that they must be a real-time display of Angel himself, wherever he was transmitting from. “So that’s why they brought you in, huh? They figured you sold me your cat software. Listen, I don’t need a goddam lion to protect myself.”

“What did you attack them with?”

“A couple buzzsaw drones. Cut them up like sashimi. They deserved it.”

“But who were they? You must have pissed somebody off.”

“Obviously.” The face licked its lips, tongue appearing like a fat worm. “I think it might be an order I declined.”

“What order?”

“Something I was asked to make. It was bad business, so I said no.”

Miguel thought about the crumpled-up illustration he’d found in the shop. “Was it an order for a bug?”

“Yeah. It was fucked up, what they wanted.”

A hand appeared below the face, rubbing the chin. The Tabitha was approaching the next dock—Hallet’s Point. Miguel absently looked at the small gathering waiting there. One of the people stood back from the others.

And that person was scratching his chin.

Hello, Angel, Miguel thought.

Trying not to stare, he muttered, “Someone hired you to make a giant bug?”

“It’s not giant. Quite the opposite. This customer sent me the specs and—ahhhh!”

As Miguel watched in disbelief, something swooped out of the sky. It grabbed Angel by the shoulders, and pulled him straight off the pier.

For a moment, Miguel thought it might be the very bug they were discussing. But no, this creature sported enormous wings like the sprawl of a kite. Angel shrieked—the sound issued from both the face on the flyer and the man in the sky. People gaped and pointed.

Then the creature dropped its quarry. Angel screeched wildly as he plummeted to the street.

The disembodied face flattened into silence.

V.

Miguel disembarked at Hallet’s Point. Fearfully watching the sky and clutching his briefcase, he hurried four blocks, sprinting from one store awning to the next, like a hunted rabbit scrambling for cover.

Finding a narrow alley—too narrow, he hoped, for any winged devil to make a descent—he called for an autocab. Snow collected on him in large, fat flakes, settling over his shoulders and briefcase. It was a quarter past five. The roads were deserted. Streetlights carved pyramidal cones of light.

He called Alexis while he waited.

“Hey, Dad!”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure! Marilyn is really cool!” She hesitated. “Why do you sound out of breath? Did something happen?”

“Everything’s fine, sweetie. I’m coming home now.” Miguel studied the desolate streets. An autocab pulled to the curb. “Sweetie, can you look something up for me? My fingers are shaking too much; it’s… um… really cold out.” He called up his photo library and emailed the eye-capture he’d taken of the bug from Angel’s shop. “Can you try running a web match on that and see if anything comes back?”

Alexis laughed. “Don’t need to. That’s phylloxera.”

He climbed into the cab. “Phyl… what?”

The line went dead.

Miguel examined his wristpad display, astonished at the NO SIGNAL message. The autocab sped away from the curb.

“Take me to Philips Hive South,” Miguel told the autocab, as he tried warming his hands to call Alexis back. The NO SIGNAL message persisted. How could there be no signal in goddam Queens? The only way that made any sense was if the signal was being blocked.

At the source.

The vehicle accelerated along 27th Avenue, banked sharply onto a connecting street, and fishtailed onto Hoyt Street South, barreling west.

“Pull over here,” he said.

Ignoring his instructions, the vehicle tore through an intersection. Passing Crescent Street. Increasing speed.

“I said pull over!”

Like any New Yorker, he’d been in his share of autocabs—hardly anyone owned personal vehicles anymore. The vehicle flew past 23rd Street. Then 21st.

“Who are you?’ Miguel demanded.

There was no response.

“Goddam it, I’m no threat to you. Neither is my daughter!” His voice cracked. “Please!”

They sped by 18th Street, Astoria Park blurring past. He tried the doors. They were locked.

Where’s it taking me? Or is it simply going to drive into a building? Into oncoming traffic? Into… into…

“The river,” he whispered helplessly.

Acting out of desperation, Miguel drew back his arm and elbowed the window.

It was like striking a steel door. If the window was glass, it was several inches thick. Unbreakable and secure from cell phone signals. An inescapable Faraday cage on wheels.

Acting out of instinct, Miguel grabbed his briefcase. He frantically typed on the LED screen.

Then the car was airborne.

It hit the waters of East River.

And sank like a stone into sepulchral gloom.

#

For a moment, Miguel wondered how waterproof the car was. It had obviously been designed for moving prisoners or abductees in total secrecy—crazily, he imagined a glossy brochure promising customers “secure transport.” Something not available to the general public.

But then he heard water pouring into the vehicle. Felt the icy bite at his ankles. Water so cold it was like acid seeping through his socks.

His heart skipped a beat in horror.

I’m going to drown! Drown in total darkness. My mysterious enemy is tying up loose ends.

The cab struck the river-bottom. Freezing water surged up to his thighs.

Will Alexis be safe? Or is she the next victim?

The water was up to his stomach. His breath came in shallow bursts. It rose to his chest like the constricting coils of an invisible python.

Then a light bloomed at his feet. Tiny letters on his briefcase LED read:

PRINTJOB COMPLETE

In his line of work, it was helpful to have a mobile assembler. Potential clients were impressed when you could create prototypes on the spot.

The water was up to his neck. Miguel plunged his hands into freezing water, grasped the briefcase, and pried it open, fighting against the growing water pressure.

A pair of spiked knuckles lay in the print-tray. It was still hot to the touch as he fitted his fingers through the loops. Raising his fist above the water, he punched the window.

A spiderweb of cracks appeared.

He drew back and hit it again. And again. Just as the water swallowed his head, the window collapsed.

The water was so cold he wanted to scream. Miguel felt his body downshifting to early hypothermia. Stiff and ungainly, he squeezed through the window frame, the briefcase in one hand as his only source of heat. He was in blackness. Floating in space. Unsure of directions. For all intents and purposes, an entity without form. An idea before creation.

Then he saw light above him—maybe the moon, maybe a New York streetlamp—and he kicked towards it, hearing his daughter’s voice in memory.

Dad! I decorated the tree. Pretty cool, huh?

Miguel breached the surface. Sucked fresh air into his lungs, backpaddled ashore with leaden limbs. By the time he attained the riverbank, he was weeping in relief, clutching his briefcase for the meager warmth it retained.

“Hey!” a voice cried. “What the hell, man?”

Weakly, he raised his head. Above the riverbank, a tow-truck had parked, and the driver stood with a cigarette in one hand and coffee in the other. The man gazed down at him in disbelief.

Miguel staggered up the embankment. “You got heat in your truck?”

“Sure… but…”

He yanked open the door and collapsed into the seat. The driver came around to his side and studied him with sad eyes.

“Hey, pal? I know things get bad around this time of year, okay? But I’m sure you have a reason to live.”

Shivering, Miguel muttered, “I do.”

“Well… that’s great! Hey, you want this coffee?”

Miguel accepted the cup with frozen hands. The first sip hit his stomach like a firecracker. With thawing fingers, he called his daughter.

She picked up instantly. “Dad? You okay? The call dropped.”

“I’m… okay… yes.”

“Why are you still out of breath?”

“You were… telling me… about the bug I sent you.”

“We studied it in biology. It’s a tiny mite. Almost microscopic. It infests the roots of plants. A long time ago, they nearly destroyed all grapevines in Europe. They burrow into roots and kill them.”

He remembered something Angel had said.

It’s not giant, quite the opposite.

Miguel conjured the eye-capture. He stared hard at the scrawled letters above it:

FOR SIS

“They’re not letters,” he said. “They’re numbers. Three numbers.”

“Dad?”

“Sorry, honey. Gotta go.” He disconnected the call and looked to the truck driver. “You’ve already been very kind to me. But I need a ride.”

“Sure, pal! Where to?”

“The Philips Hive,” he said, settling back into the seat.

“Which unit?”

“515.”

VI.

Philips Hive had at its center a 3D-printed, Tudor-style castle—Unit 515—owned and lived in by Mrs. Evelynn Philips, landlord and owner of the entire structure.

It was past 6 a.m. when Miguel came within sight of the slumlord’s dwelling. Passing by printed replicas of Renaissance statues along the path, he was surprised to see two people sitting together on the porch. A heater rattled above them. A bottle of champagne sat on a small table, with two half-filled glasses.

Even from a distance, Miguel recognized Evelynn Philips straight away, golden hair matching the shade of her drink. And from the way she shot to her feet, she certainly recognized him, too.

“What are you doing back?” she cried.

“Figured I’d bring my rent check in person,” he said, and he regarded the man she sat with. “Hi, Rod.”

The detective’s eyes widened in surprise. “Fake-maker?”

“A little late to be taking a statement, isn’t it?”

“I’m… um… trying to locate your attacker…”

“If you mean Avenging Angel, don’t bother. He’s not the guilty party. Besides, he’s no longer with any party.” Miguel watched him. “But I assume you know that. Hence the champagne.”

Ventrella was typically the portrait of measured, smug calm. But now, he was so visibly shocked by the sight of Miguel that his mouth quivered, as if trying out various excuses and finding none palatable.

Mrs. Philips was in a similar state of apoplexy. “I ordered you off this property, Mister Falcón!”

Miguel glanced at her. “Not every order is followed. Like your order… for a tiny bug that infests plant-roots and destroys them.” He looked skyward to the rooftop greenhouses glinting by dull morning light. “The community garden. That’s what this is about.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“There are no grocery stores around here. If residents of Philips Hive want food, they pay monthly subscriptions to Philips ReadyMeals. A nice secondary revenue for you.” He glared. “At least, until our community garden started.”

The infamous landlady had frozen in place.

By contrast, Detective Ventrella grinned, like a mischievous kid whose plan has been uncovered and, instead of shame, feels pride in its revelation. “Nicely done,” he said.

Ms. Philips swallowed. “Rod, this man is trespassing…”

“Drop the act, Evelynn,” the detective said. “And be careful what you say. He’s just clever enough to try recording this conversation.”

Miguel shivered in fury. “When we started growing our own food, that bit into your profits. You needed something to bite back. I’m guessing you investigated ways of outlawing the garden, but that’s not easy: changes to lease agreements, legal challenges, and a lot of bad press. It would be easier to just kill off the garden. You went to your boyfriend here, asked him to subcontract a fake-maker…” He regarded Ventrella. “Someone like Angel, who you figured wouldn’t refuse. Except he did.”

The detective descended the porch steps. He pulled a scanner from his coat pocket and frisked Miguel with it.

“He’s not recording us,” Ventrella said at last.

“Good!” the woman said. “Get rid of him!”

“Gotta admire his tenacity.”

Miguel felt his anger like a ball of light in his chest. “You wanted me dead, fine. Why go after Alexis? Why try murdering a little girl?”

The detective laughed. “If I wanted her dead, she’d be dead. I knew the rooftop was there. I just needed to rile you, Miguel—get you mad enough to lead me to Angel.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“Relax.”

“Relax?”

“Think of this as a business opportunity.”

Miguel stared at him incredulously.

“Angel wouldn’t play ball. But we still need someone to print those bugs. That’s you, Miguel.”

Ms. Philips snapped, “Rod, how the hell can we trust him?”

“Because he cares about his daughter, and he knows what I can do to her. How about it? Build us those bugs. In a couple weeks, the hive gardens die off. Dead of winter, people will rush to resubscribe to Evelynn’s service.”

“And in return?”

Ventrella’s forehead creased. “In return? I get you the best Christmas gift any father could ask for. You and your daughter get to live.”

Miguel stared at the detective’s smile. Saw the lie behind the expression, like the artificial ligaments beneath a printed beast. It made him sick. For a moment he thought he was actually going to vomit into the snow, but he choked back bile.

He cleared his throat.

He closed his eyes.

“I don’t want to do this,” he said flatly. “But for the sake of my daughter, I will.”

“Great!” The detective slapped his shoulder. “Then why don’t you go home and get fucking started? Bugs, Miguel. No lions, no manticores. Bugs only.”

“Bugs only,” Miguel echoed, and his wristpad trilled.

“Dad?” his daughter said. “You okay?”

He withdrew from Unit 515, retreating along the statue-lined path as Philips and Ventrella watched him go. “Hey sweetie. I’m on my way home.”

“Marilyn and I were just making breakfast. I really like her.” Alexis hesitated. “I’m sorry about what I said before. When I called you a criminal. You’re not a criminal. I know you’re a good guy.”

Miguel found his briefcase where he’d stashed it at the head of the path. “I do try, honey.”

“You sound weird. Is everything okay?”

“Everything will be.” His briefcase LED glowed:

PRINTJOB COMPLETE

“I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too. See you soon.”

By the time sunrise hatched over Astoria, the story was already spreading. But the world was full of stories, Miguel thought. Urban legends arising from the new age of magic-made-real. Like a burgeoning tale from Africa, about a foreign company coming under siege by strangely indestructible lions. Or street gossip of printed monsters that could snatch people into the sky.

Or how a New York slumlord and her detective boyfriend were devoured by unstoppable ants…

Brian Trent is the award-winning author of the sci-fi thrillers Redspace Rising and Ten Thousand Thunders, and more than a hundred short stories appearing in the world’s top fiction markets. This includes the New York Times’ best-selling Black Tide Rising series, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Apex, Cosmos, Flash Fiction Online, Flame Tree Publishing’s Gothic Series, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, Galaxy’s Edge, and numerous year’s best anthologies including back-to-back installments of The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF (for which he was the recipient of the 2019 Reader’s Choice Award). He is also a Writers of the Future winner.

Trent is a lifelong aficionado of classic science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and is the host of the podcast Space Station Squid where he discusses the genre. He can be found online at www.briantrent.com.

A Name to the Wind

by Tim Powers

“‘Krullen hebben’? What language was that?”

“He meant you have curly hair.” The little girl’s teenage companion pulled her along by the hand across the gravel path. Fully a third of the population of Paris had already left the city for the Provinces, and only a few people were visible on the broad lawns and paths of the gardens. “It’s a phrase of Belgian French,” she added, speaking pure Parisian French herself.

“Oh.” With her free hand the little girl drew out a lock of her straw-colored hair to peer at it, then looked wistfully back over her shoulder. The late afternoon wind was cold, and dry leaves of linden trees tumbled around their worn shoes.

“He didn’t have chocolate, Vivi,” said her companion.

Vivi nodded. “It’s been ever so long.”

The air shivered at the familiar thump of German bombs—to the north, probably on the far side of the river, but the older girl glanced mistrustfully at the overcast sky.

“Back to our hotel.” It was their private term for the Metro tunnels.

Vivi sighed, now picking at the collar of her worn blue cotton dress. She glanced at the wide water of the bassin. “I remember when we made boats out of leaves and twigs, Elodie.”

“We’ll do that again one day.”

“Promise?”

The older girl nodded. “Hold me to it.”

They began trudging back toward the east wing of the Luxembourg Palace and the Rue de Vaugirard beyond, but both spun around at the crunch of heavy boots from behind; the heavyset man who had spoken to Vivi back by the statue of St. Genevieve was hurrying across the gravel path toward them.

He was evidently one of the Belgian refugees who had fled to the city in the last month. His upturned overcoat collar made a tangle of his dark hair, and a ragged beard and moustache hid everything but his eyes and bony nose until his mouth opened.

“Come back, with me,” he said, in heavily accented French. From under his coat he pulled a long knife and waved it at the girls. “Or you will come to harm. Yes, for chocolate.”

Elodie darted a quick glance at the loose gravel underfoot, and then at Vivi’s ill-fitting shoes. She caught her breath, then straightened and scowled at the man. “We will not,” she said, emphasizing her Parisian pronunciation, “and you will—”

But little Vivi interrupted.

“Look, fool!” she piped up, pointing behind the man at a row of elms bordering a nearby terrace. “You think the hunchback Gillies did not follow you? See their white faces peering from among the trees!” She shoved two fingers into her mouth and, to Elodie’s visible surprise, whistled shrilly. “Ah,” she said, lowering her hand, “they come, with their sticks, for a reckoning!”

The man looked over his shoulder. The shadows between the elms were shifting in the cold wind. He moaned softly, gave Vivi a frightened look, then made the sign of the cross and went clumping hurriedly past the girls toward the Rue de Vaugirard.

Elodie had stepped back, away from Vivi, who was swaying and breathing rapidly.

There were no figures among the elms. Elodie’s voice was steady as she asked, “Gillies?”

Vivi had straightened and was now looking around at the wide paths and lawns with evident disapproval. “I know where I am.” She squinted up at Elodie. “What? Oh—that man was from Wallonia, in Belgium, by his speech.”

Vivi’s own vowels were now more distinct, and hinted at a Spanish origin.

Elodie was staring at her, and Vivi went on impatiently. “The Gillies are figures in their ancient Carnaval de Binche—hunchbacks, white wax faces, with sticks to drive away evil spirits.” She shrugged. “Credulous peasants.”

“What do you—” Elodie began, but her voice faltered.

The little girl stretched and took a deep breath. “This child,” she went on, exhaling, “should not be out in the streets.” She clapped her small hands as if to emphasize the point. “But here I am at last.”

Elodie rubbed a hand across her mouth. “You.”

Vivi shook her head. “Me?”

“You—cannot have her.”

Vivi’s eyebrows raised. “Have who?”

“I’ve kept her from you—from all of you.”

For a few heartbeats neither of them spoke, and the wind in the trees was the only sound. Then, “She’s mine,” said Vivi’s voice flatly. She touched her chest. “She’s me.” She cocked an eyebrow at Elodie. “Who do you imagine I am? A devil?”

Elodie was scowling down at Vivi. At last she sighed and said, “No. You’re a … reincarnation.”

“Ahhh!” Vivi rocked on her heels, peering up now at the older girl. “ And who are you?”

“Another who knows about directed rebirth.”

“Oh? Then you know that this body is mine.”

“I know my friend was you, in a past life—she does have the identifying tattoo.” Elodie hiked up her own threadbare corduroy skirt, revealing a coin-sized tattoo on her pale, narrow thigh: the image of a horned head with three circles for eyes.

“I was someone else, too,” she said, “in the nineteenth century.”

She lowered her skirt. “But you’ve missed your chance, with my friend. She has been in that body for eight years now—she’s had strong experiences in it, she has deeply imprinted memories.”

Again the distant detonations rolled across the empty gardens. Vivi looked away and sniffed the air. “Bombs? Whose? What year is this?”

“1914. The German army is approaching Paris.”

Vivi’s head nodded, squinting north. “Ignorant armies clashing.” She looked up at the taller girl. “You know that the wraith you call your friend was nothing but a mimic spirit, which took root here,” and her hand tapped her head, “like a dandelion seed that drifted into a cultivated garden.”

Elodie just shook her head.

Vivi’s voice went on, “Her ephemeral experiences and memories don’t matter—I’m properly in residence at last.” She looked up at Elodie. “You have the tattoo—you and I are both reborn. How old is the body you’re in?”

“What has that—” She shrugged. “Fourteen years.”

“I hear traces of a British accent. Who were you fifteen years ago?” She clapped her hands again.

Elodie looked out across the empty, wind-rippled face of the bassin. “A person, in London.”

“Elderly?” Elodie didn’t answer. “A man, a woman?”

“A person,” Elodie said. “What sex were you, before?”

“It doesn’t matter. Clearly you were found by our brotherhood when you were reborn, and brought to one of our nurseries, given the tattoo, and protected while you regained your previous life, your memories. This child—me—was also in a nursery, to have got the identifying tattoo. How is it that I am not still there?”

“She escaped—”

Vivi snorted. “Escaped? Wandered away from her rightful protectors, as children do.”

“—and I found her homeless in the streets. I’m her protector now.”

“You were. And I’m grateful that you kept this body safe. Where is that nursery? You know I must return there.”

“Where you would be helped to establish yourself firmly, yes? Uproot my friend, displace her, and not need to keep clapping your hands just to stay on top.” Elodie stared down at Vivi’s squinting face. “Why do you imagine I’d tell you where it is?”

The little figure of Vivi shrugged. “Well, chica, because I’m going to go searching for it in any case.” As if reminded by Elodie, she clapped her hands. “And you’ve just seen the sort of dangers an eight-year-old child might face, in this Paris of 1914. You have no acquaintance with me—but do you want your imaginary friend’s body to be found in some alley, murdered, probably being eaten by the city’s dogs?”

The jovial smile that accompanied this was ghastly on the child’s face.

Elodie shook her head and began walking north, in the direction of the Rue de Vaugirard.

Vivi came hurrying after her, clumsy in her secondhand shoes. She called, “Wait!” but Elodie had already stopped and crouched by the edge of the path. The chilly wind tossed her dark hair around her face.

“Your cheeks are hollow,” said Vivi, catching up. “Your clothes are ragged. This poverty is needless, you know. We’ll welcome you back. The will-o-the-wisp that you thought was your friend is gone. Come, with me—”

“Her name is Vivi.”

Vivi’s hands clapped rapidly several times. “That doesn’t matter. Give a name to the wind, or to one of these dead leaves.” Vivi’s hazel eyes widened in a show of earnestness. “But any real memories will be kept, in this head—I will probably even dream them! In that sense the shadow you remember will—”

Elodie had picked up two dry linden leaves and now stood up. “These gardens are a nursery.” She began walking back toward the edge of the bassin, slowly enough for Vivi to keep up.

“A poetic notion,” said Vivi impatiently, stumbling after her. “But where is the building, the nursery I belong in?”

Elodie crouched again, at the edge of the water. She broke off the stiff stems of the dry linden leaves and carefully poked them through the centers of the leaves.

“Watch this,” she said, and beckoned.

Vivi sighed, but knelt beside her.

Elodie reached out both hands and set the leaves on the surface of the water. The stems stood up from them like tiny masts. Elodie blew on the leaves and they moved out across the water.

Then she gripped Vivi’s thin upper arm. “Vivi,” she called, “look! Our boats, as I promised!”

Vivi’s arm shivered under her hand.

Vivi coughed and cleared her throat, then said, “There they go, off to fairyland!” She reached out to stir the water, and the boats rocked farther out. “Did I faint? We were over there.”

“No. That is, yes, in a way. We—”

“The man in my dreams was here.”

Elodie bit her lip. “Yes.”

“I felt him, coming up, when that man had a knife.” She frowned up at Elodie. “But I was awake.”

“He shouldn’t come out when you’re awake. We’ll find ways to make him go away altogether.”

Vivi nodded doubtfully, watching the leaf-boats recede across the water. “I’m hungry, Elodie. Would he have got us something to eat?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m sure I can find something.” The irregular distant thunder of bombs rolled across the gray sky. “Get up, we’ve got to get to our hotel.”

Vivi got to her feet. “Elodie,” she said, “am I really…me?”

Elodie caught her hand. “More and more every day,” she said, and her voice carried a fair degree of conviction, “with every thing you see, every thing you do. Come on—the bombers may move south, and it’s a walk to the Sorbonne Metro tunnel.”

Hand in hand, the two girls began trudging away toward the Rue de Vaugirard. On the bassin behind them, the two little linden-leaf boats moved on, out of reach now from the shore.

Tim Powers won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare. Declare also received the International Horror Guild Award. His novel On Stranger Tides inspired the Monkey Island video game series and was sold to Disney for the movie franchise installment Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. His book The Anubis Gates won the Philip K. Dick Award and is considered a modern science fiction classic and a progenitor of the steampunk genre. Powers won the Dick Award again for straight science fiction post-apocalypse novel Dinner at Deviant’s Palace. Many of his novels, such as Last Call and Alternate Routes, are so-called “secret histories,” which use real historical events in which supernatural and metaphysical elements influence the story in weird and compelling manners. Powers grew up in Southern California and studied English at Cal State Fullerton, where he met frequent collaborators James Blaylock and K.W. Jeter, as well as renowned science fiction author Philip K. Dick, who became a close friend and mentor. Powers is a practicing Catholic who claims “Stories are more effective, and more truly represent the writer’s actual convictions, when they manifest themselves without the writer's conscious assistance. I concern myself with my plots, but I let my subconscious worry about my themes.” Powers still resides in Southern California with his wife, Serena.

Ad Majórem Dei Glóriam

by Tom Kratman

Mogontiacum, December, 407 AD

The night air was cold and crisp. From somewhere to the north came the sound of a group of men singing in unison. The town was festively bedecked, with garlands fronting houses and spanning streets. Walking from near the Rhine to the legionary fort, west of the town, were two men, one in priestly robes and the other in barbarian trousers and a heavy wool cloak, a sagum, stinking still of lanolin. Frozen evergreens appeared at the speakers’ mouths with every word and breath.

“And the simple fact is,” said Father Alban to his friend, former Roman haruspex and recent Christian convert, the printer, Appius Calvus, “that we just don’t know why the church decided on the twenty-fifth of December as the date of Christ’s birth.

“There is a theory,” continued Alban, “that it was so that we could hide our own revels amidst the general festivities of the Saturnalia, the better to escape persecution.”

The pair walked through the darkened and frozen streets of the town, their stockinged and booted feet crunching on the earlier afternoon’s fresh snow. To either side, oil lamps burned in front of houses, and faint glows escaped from houses through shutters and through the oiled animal skins, or cloth, or treated linen, or thin-sliced animal horn that sealed off the windows of the poor and working classes from the weather, even as genuine candles—or, at least, tapers—burned through the rare and costly glass of the homes of some of the wealthy. The imperfect glass diffused the light of candle and lamp into the streets.

“Do you believe that?” asked Calvus.

“No,” the priest replied. “For one thing, there isn’t a shred of evidence that we ever even did celebrate at any time during the Saturnalia, prior to Constantine the Great becoming a Christian. And after that, there was no danger of our being persecuted, so we could have celebrated openly.”

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” countered Calvus, moving one hand from inside of his sagum, and wagging a finger.

“That’s all true,” said Alban. “And, to be fair, our Christian Christmas does seem to have picked up certain features of the Saturnalia, from decorating our houses with trees and green garlands, to burning candles, and to giving gifts. But that also doesn’t actually prove anything.

“Now me, me, personally,” Alban continued, “I think that we set Christmas at Saturnalia to compete with the pagans, and stole their customs—well, all that were meet for us to steal—for the same reason. But I have no evidence of that, either.

“There are two things, though, friend Calvus, about which I am certain.”

“And what is that?” asked the printer.

“I am certain that Christmas, right date or wrong date, is almost here. And to God, living in the eternal present, dates really don’t matter.”

Calvus didn’t answer, but stretched out one arm to stop Alban from stepping out onto the cobblestoned street, to prevent him from being trodden to the stones by a passing group of wheezing, heaving, in some cases puking legionaries, in full kit, being trotted through the town by a man he recognized as the camp prefect, Marcus Caelius.

The troops sang—or perhaps just gasped—an old legionary pagan hymn, “Sons of Mars,” as they passed. That is to say that the ones singing were the ones not puking, and that even those who were not barely had a breath to use to sing.

Startled, Alban almost lost his footing.

“They’d run either or both of us over in a heartbeat, without a second thought,” said Calvus, “rather than risk falling behind or getting out of step where Caelius might see.”

***

Praefectus Castrorum Marcus Caelius led the third class of the legions’ centurion and optio school on the tail end of a road march designed to weed out those with insufficient desire, insufficient toughness, or who were incapable of being as ruthless with themselves as they were expected to be with the men of a century or maniple.

This is to say that it had been a road march. Once through the gate of the town of Mogontiacum, Caelius had given the command—to the accompaniment of much groaning—of, “Listen up, you pussies: Double time. . . . MARCH.”

Accompanying Caelius’ long, mile-eating strides, an underling called the cadence, the two between them setting a literally blistering pace. That underling was Junior Centurion Lucius Pullo, great-grandson of both Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, mentioned by Caesar in De Bello Gallico. Pullo had been temporarily detached for this from his command of what was now known as “Pullo’s Fort,” on the other side of the Rhine, largely because, as Caelius had said, “You’re getting fat and lazy in that comfortable fort with your comfortable wife, young centurion. A little field and road work is just what you need.”

The bodies in column now, straining to keep up with Caelius and Pullo, were thinner than they had once been. Not only was the sheer physical exertion of centurion training wearing them out, but their rations were mainly barley, on which men lost weight, and not enough of that, in order to ensure they lost still more.

Each of Caelius’ classes had started with one-hundred-and-sixty literate men. One class had graduated eighty-two. The next had managed only seventy-eight. Of the hundred-and-sixty who had begun this third class, just over a third, sixty-eight men, had already dropped out or been dropped.

Fifty-eight centurions left, of what came with us from Germany four centuries ago. Of those, three—myself, Faustus Metilius, and Quintus Silvanus—have been or will be elevated to the rank of camp prefect. And we need one hundred and seventy-seven centurions of all grades, plus a like number of optios. And that’s just for the legions alone. Since we’re also trebling what we once called “the auxilia,” we need still more for that. And we only have time for maybe two more classes before we march east. I foresee problems . . .

***

In ranks, furca—the pole and frame to which a legionary attached his pack and sundry other equipment—not so much balanced on his shoulder as his shoulder being tenderized by the banging of the pole and the weight hanging from the end of it, young Tesserarius Mucius Tursidius struggled to keep up with Caelius’ exhausting pace.

Or, rather: it’s not the pace, so much, as the pace combined with the weight of equipment and being beaten half to death by that equipment. Why, oh, why, did I ever sign up for centurion training?

Tursidius knew the answer to that one already though. It came through to him in a single phrase, a single thought: Anima mea.

***

Princess Leimeie inspected all four of her charges. These were made up of one brother, one sister, and one each boy and girl of no particular degree of blood relation but for whom she had taken responsibility, since there was no one else who would have. Though not all blood relations, all five had been orphaned together, in the disastrous battle with the Romans, back in Scythia.

If asked why she’d taken them in, indeed, taken them in when she had not a bite of food or spare clothing for anybody, Leimeie would have answered, “Well, someone had to.”

The children were all dressed well now, courtesy of her prince. All, too, were well-fed, a marked difference from the early days of their captivity, when the survivors of the disaster had held the princess responsible for the failures of her father, the late king. This largesse, likewise, came from her prince. At first her prince had used no words but only gestures, bearing, and sheer force of character to inform those who had stood between her and food to leave her be. Later, on a repeat of the harassment, he had been more forceful. Leimeie hadn’t had the language, at the time, to understand what her prince had told the crowd of harridans who had massed to deprive her and the children of food. Only later had she understood his words: “Stand between them and food again and I’ll cut your tits off.”

If she hadn’t understood the words, exactly, she’d understood the tone full well. So had the harridans.

She’d been not quite sixteen then, though looking more like a twelve year old. Decent food—and her prince had not only ensured that she and the kids received full captive’s rations, commensurate with age, sex, and workload, but also bought them better food from the...Now what was that word again? Oh, I remember, the Quartermaster . . . to ensure they filled out. The skinny fifteen-year-old who had looked like a skinny twelve-year-old was now a voluptuous seventeen.

He‘d called her beautiful, too, her prince had. She hadn’t believed him until he presented her with a silvered bronze mirror, purchased locally, in a little shop in the town. She still didn’t think she was beautiful, though her blond hair had recovered well and her teeth were still good, a brilliant white and quite straight. Likewise straight and, she supposed, not too large, was her nose. What were large were her two blue eyes.

And those, too, I suppose, she admitted, looking down at her chest.

***

In his own quarters, Lucius Pullo’s wife, Zaya, undid the laces holding his lorica in place across his chest, then helped him out of the freezing steel and sweat-soaked subarmalis, the padded, sleeveless jacket that protected the skin from pinching and chafing from the metal armor, helped reduce blunt trauma and provided some standoff in the case of a shallow penetration. Though no Roman– indeed, her short stature and epicanthic folds marked her as coming from a people who were closer to Asian horse nomads than anyone else– still she was very neat, clean, and tidy. Thus, she wrinkled her nose at the stench from the subarmalis.

No matter how I try, she mourned, this thing still stinks like a week-old corpse. I’ve washed it two dozen times and dried it near a fire to keep mold from growing and, no matter, the stench never goes away. Thank God above that I’ve decorated the apartment with pine boughs and a tree; the pine scent combats the sheer funk of the padding.

Zaya was a recent convert to Christianity, recent enough that she thoroughly approved of the en masse filching of pagan customs like pine boughs, to decorate for Saturnalia, being used to decorate for Christmas.

She thought, Saint Paul says that, even though he’s still a pagan, my Christianity, as his wife, will see him to Heaven. And he’ll come around eventually; I know he will.

Pullo caught the wrinkled nose and the expression of disgust. As soon as she had him out of the padded jacket he took it from her and carried it to place outside, a blast of cold air entering their quarters as he opened the door.

Zaya started to pull her mate toward their bedroom but he stopped her. “You deserve better than a sweat-soaked, stinky ragamuffin,” Pullo told her. “Let me go do a quick tour of the fort baths and, when I return, we can make a night of it. Why don’t you feed baby Titus so he doesn’t interrupt?”

Happily she nodded and began to slip her stola off of one shoulder to bare a smallish and yet very full breast. Her child would sleep the more soundly for a full meal, though changing would not be all that far behind.

***

Marcus Caelius slipped into his quarters quietly, and stealthily snuck up behind his wife, Tabiti, no mean trick when hobnailed caligae were involved. But Caelius had a lot of time in caligae and no little experience of sneaking up on people.

Tabiti—her name meant “the flaming one”—sensed, rather than heard, her Marcus behind her and, rather than spinning about, leaned backwards into him. It wasn’t enough to cause his enveloping hands to miss her breasts. These, like Zaya’s, were full, and for exactly the same reason though, in Tabiti’s case, she being a Scythian, much larger. She felt the coldness of his lorica hamata right through the material of her stola and the shawl over it.

“Flaming?” Yes, though her hair was now shot with gray, what wasn’t gray was mostly a bright blonde with an admixture of coppery red.

Straightening herself and detaching Marcus’ hands, she turned around. A tall Scythian, she more than matched her husband in height. A quick kiss, though by no means chaste, followed.

“A hot bath awaits,” she said, after breaking contact, “courtesy of your man, Privatus, and a clean tunic is laid out on the bed along with fresh udones.”

“And after that?” he inquired, innocently.

“Stupid question,” she replied, “and you don’t get your dinner until after the question is answered.”

***

“So,” asked Calvus, “what do you think of the legionaries, including the Christian ones, singing old pagan hymns like Sons of Mars?”

“I have thought upon it,” Father Alban admitted. “And finally decided that it doesn’t bother me.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” said the priest, “the pagan ones can sing what they like; there’s no literal heresy involved, while for the Christian ones, Mars has ceased to be a god altogether, and merely represents a warrior ideal. So it isn’t a hymn to them, but just a song of an ideal to which they aspire.

“That, and I doubt I could do anything to dissuade them from it.”

“Truth,” admitted Calvus. “Their first devotion was always to the legion, anyway.”

They were very near Alban’s church now. While the main part would be bitterly cold—it was too great a space to keep heated continuously—the priest’s own quarters would be welcomingly warm. Even so, Calvus mentioned that the Catholic Church had paid him for the last shipment of New Testaments.

“So I’m pretty flush,” Calvus said, before asking, “What say we veer off a bit and hit that tavern near your church for some wine? Maybe a bite to eat?”

“I won’t say no,” replied Alban, “provided you mean the taberna and not the ganea.”

That latter was the name for a brothel, hence no place for a priest to be found, except perhaps to curse from outside the entrance.

“Aren’t several of your parishioners working girls from the ganea?”

With a scowl that went a lot deeper than just to his face, Alban answered, “They are, poor things. Almost every girl in the place. Slaves, most of them, or maybe all of them, so it’s not like they have a lot of choice. The sin, if any, is on the masters who put them to that vile occupation. Most of those masters even have the effrontery to call themselves ‘Christians,’ too. One or two of the girls may be working the taberna, but at least it’s not the primary function of the place.”

***

From close to the large fire that, along with body heat, kept the tavern warm, Centurion Gratianus Claudius Taurinus waved hello to the priest and the haruspex. “Ave!” he called, having to shout to be heard over the noise of the place. “Welcome priest and welcome man of the legion.” The former aquilifer and now centurion was seated with his optio, plus a couple of other centurions and their optios, at a table over a jug of wine.

Claudius waved the new visitors over to join them.

There was a girl there, not one of the waitstaff but a denizen of the ganea, plying her trade. Though slender, she didn’t actually appear very pretty. But, who knew, under the dirt she may have been comely enough. Her youth—So very young, thought Calvus; I don’t even want to think about how young—was likely her primary feature for attracting customers of a certain taste. On the other hand her brown eyes were simply enormous. She took one look at Alban, crossed herself hurriedly, then turned as if to leave the place.

The priest recognized her by name. He held up a restraining hand and said, “Hold, Serena. You can leave now and I wouldn’t blame you. Indeed, I’d praise you. But what happens if you go back to your master empty-handed?”

“A beating,” was her simple answer. She then added, “Since I’ve made nothing this evening, probably a bad one.”

Calvus, the new Christian, asked of Alban, “This is the season of giving, as God gave us His Son, it is not?”

“It is,” answered the priest, raising an inquisitorial eyebrow.

“Serena,” Calvus continued, addressing the girl, “how much would your master reasonably expect you to have earned, working this tavern?”

“Reasonably, sir?” the girl asked, then added, “The next time he is reasonable will be the first. But maybe fifty nummi, a stripe for each five nummi coin less than that.”

“How much silver in a nummus,” Calvus asked of the priest, “or, failing that, how many nummi could I get in trade for a single old fashioned silver denarius?”

Since the priest’s church was supported with donations, he had an answer ready to hand. “Maybe one half of one of your denarii. You should be able to get about a hundred nummi for a whole denarius. Expect to be cheated a little and get a few less.”

“Serena,” said Calvus, “come with us. We’ll feed you, give you a little wine, and then send you home with enough money in hand to keep your master’s lash away from your back.”

The girl’s eyes opened wide with horror. She glanced in panic between her would-be benefactor and the priest.

“He didn’t mean it the way you’re taking it, girl,” said Alban. The priest sighed, “Not that I can blame you for taking it that way. But, no, neither of us wants to engage your services. He means to give you a gift so you do not get a beating. He also means to feed you something.”

“Oh,” said the girl, clearly embarrassed and hanging her head at her misunderstanding. “Thank you, sir.”

Gratianus still hadn’t converted, though his optio had. The legion remained his religion and probably always would. Even so, he respected men of faith, even of this faith that was new to him and to the legion. He elbowed his optio, lightly, to get him to slide over on the bench to make room for Calvus and the girl. A glance at the centurion on the other side of the table sent this one to shifting down to give the priest a place to sit.

Introductions were made all around. From their reaction to Father Alban, it wasn’t hard to tell who among the crew had already converted, and who were thinking about it. It was also a little warming that, although every man there obviously knew Serena, by name, not one gave any indication that they’d ever made use of her.

Could be decency, thought the priest, or could just be tact. I’ll be charitable and assume decency.

Another girl–she announced herself as “Paula, the tavern keeper’s daughter”–came over, recited the fare, and took orders. Paula gave a pitying look to Serena, shaking her head in sympathy.

Wine arrived before dinner. Serena had asked for a cup of sweet white, while the rest of the congregation took an almost dry red. With the wine came epityrum, a kind of olive-based relish, olive oil with herbs, and a platter of sliced breads, both dark and white.

Serena dug into the bread, oil, and relish with more gusto than simple hunger would account for. Leaning over, she began to shovel it in with both hands. Calvus glanced at her back and saw linear stains, old and dull red.

She wasn’t joking about the beatings, now, was she? And both her appetite, clothing, and build suggest that her master is not merely vicious, but cheap, as well. Maybe worse, he’s stupid, because nobody wants a girl who looks ready to die of hunger, or is dirty, or is oozing blood.

Calvus elbowed Gratianus lightly, pointing at the girl’s back with his chin.

“I know,” said the centurion, softly. “Hell of a world, ain’t it?”

The place was noisy enough that Serena heard none of it.

“What would it cost,” asked Calvus, “for you and your mates to go and have a little chat with her master? You know; to explain the realities of business—or this kind of business—to him? With Christian love and charity? And not too many bruises and broken bones?”

“I think another jug of wine would just about cover it. And it needn’t be of the best.”

“Paula!” shouted Calvus. “Paula! Please bring another couple of jugs of the best wine for my comrades of the Eighteenth Legion!”

***

Gratianus and the others had departed, as if on some urgent errand.

“My mother died,” Serena explained around a spoon full of thick stew. “My father adored my mom. After she died he lost all purpose, crawled into an amphora of wine, and never came out again, not that I saw. Eventually some slavers caught him when he was drunk and convinced him to sell me. Yes, he was really drunk. If he ever sobered up he might have noticed I was gone. But I don’t know that he ever did.”

“Where are you from?” Calvus asked. “And how did you get here?”

“Cartago Novo, in Hispania,” she answered. “I was put in a slave coffle. We followed the Via Augusta to Illici, Valentia, Saguntum, and then Tarraco. From Tarraco we followed the Via Augusta, and then the Via Domitia, to Narbonensis . . .”

“How do you know this?” Alban asked.

“Well, I could read the signs, sir, couldn’t I?”

“You can read?” exclaimed Calvus.

“Yes,” the girl answered. “My mother taught me before she died. Fat lot of good it’s done me since.”

Calvus pointed at a sign over the bar. “Read that,” he commanded.

“It’s just a list of wine prices,” Serena said. “Sixty nummi for a pint of local . . .”

“Where is your ganea?” Calvus asked.

Serena gave very competent directions, including street names and landmarks. “Why?”

“Oh, our former comrades of the table were heading that way and I’d like to join them,” Calvus answered. He dug several coins from a fold in his tunic, passed them to Alban, and said, “For anything else you or Serena might need. I’ll be back shortly. Would you stay here and keep the young lady company?”

“I’m no lady,” Serena corrected, huge brown eyes downcast. “I’m not any kind of a lady at all.”

“Hush,” said Calvus. Turning back to Alban he said, “I don’t think this will take long. Not with the powers of persuasion I can bring to bear.”

***

When Calvus arrived at the bordello, he found two door guards, laid out side by side, sleeping peacefully in the foyer. Both sported bruises and rather large knots on their heads. Blood had dribbled out from the nose of the larger of the two. Meanwhile, farther inside, Gratianus had a tight hold of some man’s hair, with one hand, his victim’s arm twisted behind his back with the other. The centurion was holding the man’s head in a tub of cold water. He waited until the bubbles stopped coming up before pulling the gasping, choking, half-drowned brothelkeeper out.

“Ah, Calvus,” said the centurion. “Glad you could join us. I was just explaining to this person”—Gratianus spat the word—“how very uneconomical it is to cause the merchandise to bleed.”

“You . . . don’t . . . underst–”

Whatever the proprietor was going to say was lost as he went, face down, once again into the tub. Gratianus calmly watched for the disappearance of the tell-tale bubbles, then pulled him out once again.

Calvus held up a restraining finger. He waited for the proprietor to finish gasping and gagging, then said, “There’s a girl you own, one Serena, by name.”

“Yes . . . I . . . own . . . her,” the brothelkeeper gasped out.

“I’d like to buy her from you, in a very real and legally binding sense.”

“Five nummi . . . and you can . . . use her . . . as you like.”

“I don’t think you understand,” said Calvus. Normally, Calvus was a very peaceful and peaceable man. He could, however, be provoked. “Centurion Gratianus.”

Once again, in went the glorified pimp’s head into the water. He hadn’t really had a chance to draw much breath so the bubbles stopped relatively quickly.

When the brothelkeeper’s head reemerged, Calvus said, his voice the very soul of calm reason, “I don’t think you understood me. I said ‘buy,’ not rent. How much to buy the girl from you? Don’t be greedy or we can negotiate this with your head in the water.”

“Ten solidi!” the man shouted.

“Too high,” observed Calvus. “Centurion?”

Gratianus’ grip on the man’s hair tightened as he began, once again, to force the head down. Just before another plunge, the man shouted, “Wait! Wait! I misspoke. Two solidi. Two! God, just two!!!”

Again, Calvus held up a restraining finger. “That seems very fair,” he mentally translating that to be a couple of dozen old style legionary denarii. “Centurion, if you might lead this man to his office, where he can write out a bill of sale. Why, you fine fellows can witness it.”

***

When Calvus returned to the tavern—at Calvus’ sincere suggestion, Centurion Gratianus and his party had been gifted, if that was quite the right word, the use of any girls in the house . . . rather than the proprietor face another near drowning—he placed the bill of sale in front of Serena. She read it without any difficulty that couldn’t be explained by the brothelkeeper’s so-so penmanship.

“You own me?” she asked, wonderingly. “But why? I’m nobody and you’re not the kind of man who likes girls as young as me. Trust me, I’ve learned how to tell the difference.”

“Because,” Calvus replied, “I am a printer and you can read. If you can read you can learn to proofread. And with a little training you can probably set type.” And I also hate seeing anybody abused, let alone young girls.

“By the way, though you can read, I haven’t asked; do you like to read?”

“God, yes,” the now-former prostitute answered. The dreamy look in her eyes told Calvus she was telling the truth. “There was a library in Cartago Novo my mother would take me to when we could afford the admission. I was working my way through De Bello Gallico when my mom took sick. And–”

“Girl,” Calvus interrupted, “your life has just taken an amazing turn for the better. Do you have a cloak?”

She shook her head.

“You mean that swine sent you out into the streets in only a thin . . .”

“There were reasons,” Serena said, “why I tried to ply my trade –”

“Former trade,” Calvus corrected.

“—inside the tavern.”

Calvus stood, picking up his own sagum from the bench where he’d been sitting on it. “Put this on. Your new home is a long cold walk.”

“Could we go by the church first?” Serena asked. “If I’m not going to have to sin anymore, I’d like to confess my sins now and be clean for a change.”

“How old are you?” Calvus asked.

“Fourteen. Yes, I know I look younger but my master—my former master—didn’t feed us very well.”

Alban piped in, “Yes, I can hear a confession now. No problem at all. More glad to do it than I can recall anytime lately. But, Serena?”

“Yes, Father?”

“You have less to confess than you might think. The sins were not yours. But if it will make you feel as pure as your spirit is . . . let’s go.”

***

The bright morning sun cast long shadows across the street, painting the buildings on the other side of Father Alban’s church in shadow. Leimeie waited in front of Father Alban’s church. Her prince had said he would meet her here and she never doubted him. From the north came the sound of running men, all hobnails slapping cobblestones, jingling armor, and “left-right-left-right-left-right-left.”

A young girl, wearing a somewhat oversized cloak, a clean wool tunic, and barbarian trousers but cut for a girl, ran up, a large sheaf of paper under one arm. With barely a nod at Leimeie, she plunged through the door into the darkness inside.

From inside the church came the sound of muted conversation, men’s and women’s voices mingling. All sounded rather happy, really.

One man emerged from the church, old, grizzled, and scarred, wearing a sagum over a bright white tunic.

“Lady,” he said, thus greeting Leimeie. “Correction, Princess.”

“Centurion Gabinius,” she answered. “Are you ready?”

“No one ever had an easier job,” Gabinius replied. “Besides, I have certain debts . . . in any case, let’s get you in out of the cold. Bad luck for you to be seen just yet.”

“But . . . but I wanted to see . . .”

“You can watch from the door. Nothing in tradition says a word about you not seeing.”

Once inside, Leimeie glanced around the church. Though it could normally hold over two hundred souls, it seemed full to bursting.

Must be the number of women who came with their men, she thought.

Two of those women, Zaranaia, the legate’s wife, and Tabiti, the camp prefect’s woman, left their pews as soon as they caught sight of Leimeie. Both went to their knees before her, as if they were her subjects, then stood up and wrapped her in their arms.

“Nervous, Princess?” asked Tabiti.

“A little,” she admitted.

“Don’t be. You are going to just love being married,” said Tabiti.

“Oh, yeah,” added Zaranaia, dreamily. “The benefits . . .” She let the thought drift off.

Outside, the chorus of “left-right-left” and the sound of running feet grew to a crescendo then stopped completely at the command, “Maniple . . . HALT.” More commands followed.

Tabiti, Zaranaia, and the centurion hustled Leimeie into an unlit alcove.

As they did they heard Marcus Caelius ordering, “Tesserarius Mucius Tursidius, front and center. The rest of you turds . . . single file from the right . . .” “Forward . . . standandand fastastast . . .” “MARCH! Pullo, take charge!”

As another ninety-four men, not all of them Christians, filed into the church, matters went from crowded to barely standing room only.

Should warm things up nicely, thought Father Alban, standing in front of the altar.

***

“Have you got the ring, Tursidius?” asked Marcus Caelius. “Assuming so, pass it over.”

Mucius had it grasped in his left hand, which on any other day might hold the grip for his scutum. “Here, sir.”

Briefly, Marcus Caelius examined it. “‘Anima mea’? Appropriate enough. You nervous?”

“Terrified, sir.”

“Takes a brave man to admit it,” Caelius said. From inside his own tunic, Caelius drew a corona civica, a civic crown, Rome’s second highest award for valor. Mucius Tursidius had earned it for saving the life of his centurion, one Caius Gabinius, a couple of years earlier, in the defense of their camp from assaulting Scythians.

“Yes, I took the liberty,” Marcus Caelius said. “Now put this on your head and let’s go.”

Uniquely, Marcus Caelius held the door for Tursidius. The latter stopped just inside to accustom his eyes to the reduced light inside the church. This, despite the fact that the priest had a number of candles and literally dozens of oil lamps burning.

Caelius joined him, likewise having to wait several minutes for his eyes to adjust.

“We don’t need to march here,” said the camp prefect “and, even though I outrank the shit out of you, you walk on the right side.”

A couple of dozen steps and Mucius found himself standing in front of Father Alban, and just slightly off to one side, Marcus Caelius standing to his left. At a nod from the priest, two celebrants began pumping the small water organ, or hydraulis, standing to one side of the main door.

Pressure—hydraulic pressure—built up inside the instrument. The organist began playing the tune of an ancient hymn, originally to Hymen, god of marriage ceremonies, now, much like the aspects of the Saturnalia, syncretically co-opted by the Church:

Glancing down at the sheets passed out moments before, the celebrants began to sing:

“Let the torches blaze, let the bride’s veil shine,

“United in love under heaven’s divine.”

“That’s our cue, Princess,” said Gabinius, offering the girl his arm. “Now take it slow and easy. No need to hurry. Give the crowd what they want to see . . . and let’s make young Tursidius wait for his reward.”

“The Lord be with you,” began Alban.

***

She wore his ring now. Her veil was lifted and a crown placed on her head. Alban intoned, “May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob be with you, and may He fulfill His blessing upon you, that you may see your children’s children to the third and fourth generation, and have eternal life in Christ our Lord.

“You may kiss the bride.”

It wasn’t particularly seemly, but the entire church, Christian majority and pagan minority, alike, burst into cheering. Alban shot a glance at Marcus Caelius, who gave two commands at the top of his lungs. “Be quiet. And Tursidius, though it pains me deeply to grant this, you have a two-day pass. Report to the course barracks by first light, two days hence. What? You’re still here? Take your bride, boy, and go!”

“Take me to our home, my prince,” said Leimeie, princess of the Scythians.

The legate, Gaius Pompeius, and his lady, Zaranaia, accompanied by Tabiti, gathered in front of Caelius. The women were somewhat taller than their husbands.

“You couldn’t have given them three days?” asked Tabiti.

“What?” said Caelius,. He pointed at the legate, adding, “And have this one insisting again that I’m getting soft?”

“Well, Dad . . .”

And that is all that will be said about this matter; a newly married couple is entitled to a degree of privacy.

***

Later, in the print shop, Serena couldn’t control her tears. She leaned on the press, weeping uncontrollably. “It was so beautiful,” she said, more than once.

“Is that why you’re crying?” asked Calvus.

“No,” she replied. “I’m crying because it will never happen to me. Confession and absolution or not; I’m too unclean.”

Calvus, had seen something the girl had apparently missed, namely the slack-jawed, already conquered expression worn by the printer’s young male assistant, Exuperius, whom he’d hired away from a local merchant.

“You know,” Calvus said, “for a clever and literate girl you can be awfully stupid. And when no less a personage than Father Alban pronounces you clean and pure, just who do you think you are to gainsay it, hmmm?”

And she did clean up rather nicely. Hence young Exuperius’ continuous mooneyes.

There came a knock from the door.

“Dry your eyes and go answer that, would you, Serena?”

A few moments later the girl called out, “It’s the tree, the pine boughs, and the candles, oil, and lamps you ordered.”

“Exuperius,” Calvus called out.

“Yes, sir?”

“Help Serena carry in the decorations for Christmas.”

The boy couldn’t keep the enthusiasm out of his voice. “Yes, sir!”

***

Calvus had poured a cup of wine for each of them, then set himself to laying out the type for his next printing project, a compendium of the Gospels, for private purchase or for any of the huge number of tiny churches that dotted the countryside of Italy, Spain, Germany, Gaul, Britannia, and Africa. Matthew and Mark sat thickly on tables and benches around the shop. He was currently working on Luke and, expressly, the Christmas story.

As his eyes roved from the master copy to the composing stick, Calvus’ hands placed the metal letters upside down and backwards. Unaware of it, himself, he was humming a strange tune.

“What is that?” Serena asked, as she strung the pine boughs around the print room, placing them on short nails driven into the walls at regular intervals.

“What’s what?” Calvus asked, absently.

“What’s that song? The one you were humming?”

“Was I? Why, I didn’t know. And I don’t know. What did it sound like?”

Serena hummed a few notes back at him.

“I’ve heard that somewhere or somewhen,” Calvus said. “I mean, before this day. But . . . I never told you, did I? I suppose I didn’t. Exuperius knows the story, as does the entire Legio XIIX, by this point, I suppose. You see, when God sent the legion forward in time, for whatever reason of His own, my body and my spirit separated. My body, with not a lot more animation to it than a tree has, followed along with the legion. But my mind, or maybe my soul, passed through over a hundred places. I don’t even know how many. When I was in some place, it was always by sharing the mind of a denizen of that place. They thought in their own language and I understood it in mine. And vice versa.

“When my mind and body were reunited, I remembered things but dimly, as if in a dream I’d had early in sleep that I had a vague recollection of when I woke up next morning. Some things were clearer; some more dim. How to build and operate this printing press; that was somewhat clear. The attempted crossing of the Rhine by the barbarians, last New Years? I was there to see that and was able to warn the legion some time after I came back. But a thousand other details are either lost or too dimly remembered to use. That tune may be one of them.”

“Shame,” said Exuperius, “it was very pretty. Can you make yourself remember it, learned boss?”

“Sometimes I can,” answered Calvus. “Sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I can but not in any useful way.”

“Does anything help?” asked Serena.

“Sometimes wine; sometimes quiet. Also sometimes nothing helps.”

“Let me bring you some more wine,” said the girl. “And then Exuperius and I can go decorate some other part of the shop, some part where we won’t disturb you. Because I really think you need to remember that tune.”

***

Though he wasn’t sure exactly why, Calvus tried so hard to remember. He’d had Serena hum the tune, the bit she’d caught, repeatedly. He could consciously recite it now, but that was all. He was sure there were supposed to be words to go along with the music, but couldn’t remember any of them. This was odd, because he did remember the setting. It had been in a small church close to a river. He was sure of that because the walls of the church, lit by candles only, showed marks indicative of risen waters. His host of the time—a priest named Josef—had also told him of the flood risk.

More wine then. Maybe a lot more. He refilled his cup from a jug the girl had brought him.

Hmmm . . . no, not one jug, four. Well, needs must . . .

***

Calvus was awakened by morning sun diffusing into the shop through the oiled skins covering the windows. His head lay on the table at which he’d been seated while trying to remember. His hand knocked over the cup from which he’d been drinking. No matter; the cup was bone dry.

Just as dry were enough jugs of wine to float a small warship. All right, so I’m exaggerating. My head still feels as if I’d had that much to drink. Blech!

The printer realized his face had been resting on the closed covers of a cera, a waxen writing tablet. A stylus lay on the table next to it.

Reluctantly, Calvus opened the cera. Scratched into the wax on each leaf of the opened tablet were poems, in proper Latin. The meter said they were not the same poem at all.

Ah, but do I know the music. Let’s . . .

As it turned out, Calvus did remember the music now, two distinctly different pieces. He could also, more or less clearly, recall Josef’s singing in full. Josef had told him that the organ was badly out of condition, hence had accompanied the thing with an instrument something like a lyre, but deeper and far more resonant.

And I saw their way of writing music down, but I do not understand how it worked. Still, just knowing there’s a better way . . .

“Serena!” Calvus called out. “Exuperius! Attend me.”

***

All three of the print shop staff, most expressly to include Calvus, himself, busied themselves with putting letters into composing sticks and then transferring these to the galley, a kind of flat tray. Each took special care to reference Calvus’ cera, on which the poems had been hand-scratched via Calvus’ stylus. The lines of the poems were short so that at least eight copies could be laid out side by side. There was only enough room to list out both poems four times, top to bottom.

Once the galley was filled, Exuperius drove in little wedges along the sides, top, and bottom, to hold the letters in place. Calvus was pretty sure that he’d seen a better method in his spectral travels, but couldn’t quite remember what it had been. Meanwhile, Serena busied herself with dabbing two ink balls into the ink block, then beating the ink balls together, to spread the ink evenly. Finally, once Exuperius was out of the way, and all the little wedges driven into place, she began inking the letters.

“All right, Exuperius,” said Calvus, “one sheet of second-rate paper for a proof copy, moisten it and print it.”

***

“So far, so good,” Calvus announced. “Exuperius, print us off . . . oh . . . not that many people are literate and I don’t want the illiterate ones taking copies to clean themselves after going to the toilet . . . so, let’s say, a dozen sheets. That gives plenty for Alban to circulate around, too. Meanwhile, I need to go to take Serena to see the legate, who is also the military governor. Get your new cloak, child; no dawdling.”

***

The praetorium, headquarters for the legion and, for the time being, for the town, was heavily decorated for the coming Christmas. Not one but two small pines stood, framing either side of the main doorway. So, too, were pine boughs and wreaths liberally hung on all the walls. There were candles, as well, along with an unusually large number of lit oil lamps to supplement the light filtering in through the translucent windows.

In that praetorium Gaius Pompeius was enjoying a private lunch with his wife, Zaranaia. He was a normal enough Roman, a bit swarthy and with his hair cut short, square chin and brown eyes. She, conversely, was a great beauty, blonde and blue-eyed, with exquisitely feminine features and demeanor. She’d already born one child and was working on more.

Gaius had come to adore her.

Gisco knocked on door and stuck his head in. “Sorry to disturb you, sire, but the former haruspex, the printer, Calvus, would like to see you on a matter of . . . well, yes, I suppose it is of some urgency.”

“Shall I leave, husband?” asked Zaranaia.

Gisco interrupted, “Given the nature of the matter, my lady, I absolutely think you should stay. And, sir; Calvus is not alone. He has a young lady with him. A very young lady.”

“Send them in, by all means,” said the Legate, Gaius Pompeius.

Calvus came in alone, then whispered to Gaius what the matter was. The legate—already grinning because, well, with a girl like Zaranaia to wife, what was there not to grin about—gave a hearty laugh.

“Wonderful, Calvus. Yes, by all means bring her in. Gisco, you’re a citizen, too, so you stay. And bring in the orderly from the lobby. Calvus, have you the paperwork ready?”

The printer pulled out two folded sheets, hand-written in duplicate, from inside his tunic, laying the two copies on the table next to the legate. Atop those he also placed a rod, the vindicta, of about a foot and a half in length.

When all were assembled, to include the skinny little creature accompanying Calvus, Gaius Pompeius stood. He beckoned Gisco over and whispered in his ear. The secretary smiled broadly and said, “Most happily, sir.”

Gisco picked up the rod and walked to stand in front of Serena. “Bend your head, child,” he told her.

Thereupon, Gisco touched the girl gently on her head with the rod, and announced, “Hanc puellam liberam esse aio ex iure Quiritium.” I declare this girl free in accordance with the laws of the citizens of Rome.

“Does anyone present object?” asked Gaius, looking directly at Calvus. “If so, so state.”

Silence.

“Seeing that there are no objections,” said Gaius, “I adjudge her to be free. And, moreover, I shall pay the manumission tax from my own purse, just in case anyone might doubt it.

“Gisco, please sign the documents. And orderly, sign your name or make your mark as a witness.”

Serena, who really hadn’t a clue what had just transpired, looked up at Calvus for an explanation. He, for his part, took the first of the signed documents and handed it to her. “You are free, Serena, as you should always have been.”

“What? Free?” She paused, as if savoring the word. “Free? Really free? Free-free?”

“As free as any girl has ever been, I think,” said Zaranaia. She stood, walked over, and wrapped the girl in great, enveloping hug. “Free,” she whispered.

“Free . . . .free . . . .free . . . free . . . free . . . free!” exclaimed Serena, practically singing the word.

“Yes,” agreed Gaius, smiling broadly. “As free as all that.”

“Now take that document to Father Alban,” said Calvus. “Be sure you do not lose it. And ask him to register you in the church records as a free Christian girl of the town of Mogontiacum.”

“I’ll take care of registering her civilly,” said Gisco. “And, sir, I’ll take the money out of your petty cash box for the tax.”

“Free,” said Serena, once again. And yet again, “Free.”

“Off to the church with you, child,” Calvus reminded. “Ask Father Alban to get his musicians and chorus to attend. I’ll be along at a more sedate pace than I expect you to set.”

As Calvus left the praetorium, Gaius Pompeius whispered, “Digna factis recipimus.” We receive the due rewards of our deeds. “May it prove so.”

***

The church was as well lit as Calvus could remember ever having seen it. There were rare and expensive candles by the altar, true, but this was only normal. In addition to those, three dozen smaller candles lined the walls, in hung sconces, even as multi-wicked oil lamps hung from the ceiling, burning overhead.

It was light enough to read by.

At the front entrance, well-bundled against the biting cold, Serena and Exuperius passed out sheets of paper upon which were printed two poems. The first of these was labeled “Adeste Fidelis.”

The evening vigil mass before Christmas Day wasn’t exactly by invitation. However, the word of the mass had only gone out to certain persons. Four more open masses were scheduled for the morrow, while a service would also be held in the square, the forum, of the legionary base.

Among those who had been notified, literacy was, in the male half, almost universal. Since the female half was Scythian to a considerable degree, literacy among the women was rather more rare, though not unknown and still improving.

A healthy crowd, more than two hundred and fifty, including the women, filed in, packing the benches. All of these had already been received into the church or, in some cases, had married a Christian thus guaranteeing their own entrance into Heaven.

Among those in attendance was Calvus, standing by the hydraulis and the choir, in the back. He and his two assistants had spent most of the last two days working with the organist and the singers to get those two poems and the music for them down. With the last of the celebrants having passed through the door, Serena and Exuperius came into the church as well, each bearing but a few of the song sheets they’d been passing out.

One of the auxiliaries to Father Alban began to walk slowly up the church’s central aisle, or nave, swinging a censer, thus filling the church with the aroma of frankincense. As soon as the cross preceding Father Alban reached the nave, the organist began. The choir joined in shortly with:

“Adeste Fideles laeti triumphantes,

“Veníte, veníte in Bethlehem.

“Natum vidéte, Regem Angelorum:

“Veníte adoremus,

“Veníte adoremus,

“Veníte adoremus

“Dóminum.

“Deum de Deo, lumen de lúmine,

“Gestant puellae viscera.

“Deum verum, genitum non factum:

“Veníte adoremus,

“Veníte adoremus,

“Veníte adoremus

“Dóminum.”

By this point, the rest of the celebrants had gotten the idea and joined in with the choir:

“Cantet nunc io chorus Angelórum

“Cantet nunc aula caelestium.

“Gloria in excelsis Deo:

“Venite, adoremus,

“Venite . . .”

Alban, having reached the altar, turned about and saw that his parishioners seemed quite pleased with themselves at having picked up and joined in with the music.

As well they should. And I hope this is the start of some very good things.

“The Lord be with you,” Alban intoned.

“And with your spirit,” came the response.

***

Mass was done, most of the celebrants having taken communion.

“Before I dismiss you,” said Alban, “we have one more treat, brought to us by the same divine magic that sent the Eighteenth Legion to us in our hour of need and sent Brother Calvus all over the world and through many times to gather knowledge for our benefit. I ask you all to consult your song sheets and join us in this beautiful hymn of remembrance and praise . . .”

One again the organist began, but played one entire verse twice, without singing, so that everyone could grasp the music. Then Alban began to sing, the chorus following right along, along with the entire group. They sang:

“Silens nox, sancta nox,

“placida, lucida,

“virginem et puerum

“dulcem atque tenerum,

“somno opprime,

“somno opprime.

“Silens nox, sancta nox!

“Angeli nitidi

“‘Alleluia’ concinunt.

“Nunc pastores metuunt,

“Christus natus est,

“Christus natus est.”

Calvus, though singing along with the rest, looked down as Serena and Exuperius. They were singing, as well. Tears were pouring down the girl’s face, while the boy had to dab at his eyes with a bit of his cloak.

Looking around, Calvus saw that tears were fairly common, from both the women and even, much to his surprise, the men. Why even grizzled old Caelius seemed almost ready to join his wife, Tabiti, in tears.

Will wonders never cease? he mentally asked himself.

“Silens nox, sancta nox,

“candida, splendida!

“Fili Dei facies

“nobis praebet novas spes.

“Christus natus est,

“Christus natus est!”

Calvus took another look at his young assistants. They were holding hands.

The savior is born, thought Calvus, and a young girl freed, and perhaps a new beginning for her and the boy. They could both do a lot worse. And I am pleased I was able to recapture the song. “Stille nacht,” that priest, Josef, had called it. I think it is maybe more beautiful here even than it was in that church.

And Josef, do you mind that I stole it? I think not. I think you would be pleased that it serves us here in this earlier time . . . for the greater glory of God.

In 1974, at age seventeen, Tom Kratman became a political refugee and defector from the PRM (People’s Republic of Massachusetts) by virtue of joining the Regular Army. He stayed a Regular Army infantryman most of his adult life, returning to Massachusetts as an unofficial dissident while attending Boston College after his first hitch. Back in the Army, he managed to do just about everything there was to do at one time or another. After the Gulf War, with the bottom dropping completely out of the anti-communist market, Tom decided to become a lawyer. Every now and again, when the frustrations of legal life and having to deal with other lawyers got to be too much, Tom would rejoin the Army (or a somewhat similar group, say) for fun and frolic in other climes. His family, muttering darkly, put up with this for years. He no longer practices law, instead writing full-time for Baen. His novels for Baen include A State of Disobedience, Caliphate, and the series consisting of A Desert Called Peace, Carnifex, The Lotus Eaters, The Amazon Legion, Come and Take Them, The Rods and the Axe, and A Pillar of Fire by Night. With John Ringo, he has written the novels Watch on the Rhine, Yellow Eyes, and The Tuloriad. Also for Baen, he has written the first three volumes of the modern-day military fiction series Countdown. He’s recently co-authored the brilliant The Romanov Reign Series with Kacey Ezell and Justin Watson.

Skjaldmóðir

by Michael Z. Williamson and Jessica Schlenker

The Martial Art of the English Language

There are many translations of the Old English epic, “Beowulf.” The language is significantly different from our own. While with care, we might puzzle out some of its gloss, an Old English speaker would grasp little of Modern English with all its influxes. Also, words and definitions have changed with time.

Grendel’s mother is described as a “Hag,” which has a different meaning in modern context. Originally, a “hag” was a supernatural being near a swamp, that killed men; a powerful supernatural entity. The word has changed until it means “ugly old woman,” but that’s a modern definition.

Grendel’s mother is also repeatedly referred to as a “lady,” a person of status. That’s an odd dichotomy to parse against “hag.” Also, having defeated Grendel, and later a dragon, why is a hag mother mentioned as a worthy adversary? The terms in the original show respect and awe. Translations in other languages present differently than modern English tellings. Supernatural, but worthy, not ugly and contemptible. At the same time, it’s a common dramatic tool to denigrate the opposition, to uplift the status of the hero.

Our story was first published in the “Fantastic Hope,” anthology by Laurell K. Hamilton and Will McCarthy. I had an idea for the summary and ending. Jess is a fantastic collaborator with a broad knowledge of history and in this case some relevant sciences also. She added some amazing character, and we swapped back and forth until it was done. It was well received.

Recently I was studying up on English language history and etymology. We’ve been given vocabulary, borrowed it, stolen it, from almost every language we encountered. I joked that the curse of invading England is that you’re forced to become English, so don’t do it. The Romans, Saxons, Angles, Geats, Normans, Danes, Norse, all invaded, left people behind, along with their language elements, to incorporate into the existing Celtic, Gaelic, Pictish and other roots. Truly, it is a mess. Fundamentally, though, it’s still a stripped down, simplified Germanic language, with other stuff overlaid for color. There are linguists who dispute this, but I maintain they are wrong.

I got to wondering how the story would read if only Old English and Germanic-sourced words were used. I started in, and it was quite a task. Modern English is such a concatenation of everything above, and then recent additions from dozens of other languages. Words like mesa, sushi, robot, gung ho, banjo, tango, moccasin, tomahawk, kangaroo, taboo, avatar, bungalow, coach (horse drawn), bandana, bamboo, pistol, tycoon, tempo, gong, rattan, okra, caravan, boondock, intelligentsia, tattoo, breeze, stevedore, pastrami, taiga, tundra, czar, glamour, slogan, ski, saga, tsunami, ammonia, camel, arroyo, cockroach, tornado, smorgasbord, fez, shaman, bard, druid, bagel, schmuck, polka, ramen, typhoon, and thousands of others are all recent additions (within the last couple of centuries in most cases) where English just took the existing word, shrugged, and used it. Sometimes we even pronounced and spelled it correctly.

Jess and I even found some vocabulary that were loanwords from Old French, who got them from Old English. I found one that was a loanword from Latin, who’d gotten it from the Germani. I went to work on a back translation, if you will.

I passed it back to Jess, and we had a couple of actual linguists review it. Hopefully we didn’t miss anything, but if we did, it’s all on me. However, I think we managed to accomplish what we intended. This version definitely has a different feel and delivery. To me it’s more primal, coarse, and impactful.

So this isn’t Old English, or Proto-Germanic. It is modern English. The words we used, however, all derive from those languages, even if the words changed over time or concatenated later to cover new expressions. After all, modern readers have to be able to access it, and this is a retelling for the present.

You’re welcome to enjoy both versions and compare the presentation.

Go here to read the original version.

Skjaldmóðir, revised version

My son was called a monster.

Perhaps, he was even born a monster through no shortcoming of his own, merely a plaything of the gods’ whims.

I did not see him so. I knew him best as my sweet boy, bringing me bunches of newly opened spring flowers, or asking I tell him the stories my mother told me as a child.

Perhaps I brought it down on him, through my own deeds, in the years before his birth. But I had taken up a spear to stand for my kin; surely the gods would not wreak us for that?

Not all landholding families are wreathed in wealth untold. Most, in fact, are more like my own was: farmers, herders, stewards of the earth. There may be some wealth earned in fighting, swapped for blood, limbs, or lives. Mostly, though, a little is earned through deal and trade, swapping work and sweat for enough to live on.

After a hard year, with every nearby kinry stretched thin, raiders came, bringing war to our homes. Mayhap they thought we hid the wealth reckoned of us, but it madeworth not. We fought for our lives, and I did my best to lay on as much scathe as I could to save our home. But we were overwhelmed, and we fled to save the youngest. The raiders wreaked whatever they sighted. I still hope they kept some of it, rather than burned everything not laid in gold or silver. But they did not crave the land itself, and we met the still smoking wreckage of our home unbeset. The cows but one were missing. On a charred spit we saw the scorched leftovers of the one other.

We rebuilt, as my father’s kin had done before and given will have to again. A middling handgeld was offered for me, the eldest girl, by friends of my father’s. Unspoken was the knowledge the offer was made to help in the building of our new house, as his friends had been spared the wreakage. Thankfully, I knew the son, and even liked him. We played together often enough as bairns.

My new husband assisted in righting my family’s homestead, before we onwent to our own forthcoming. My lord’s father gifted him a small comeup of land from their holdings, for us to build a home and to till. Being only the two of us, we both learned with the sword daily, and one of our first goals was to buy sturdy leather and shield for us both, and a ringbyrnie for him. I did not wish to be caught unweaponed and unshielded to raiders if I could help it.

I quickly became with child, a sheenful little girl, who did not last through her first year.

When I bore our son, Grendel, we saw at once his head was slightly misshapen. But he had strong lungs, and he was healthy. To me, that was enough. I could not bear to lose another. His birth was hard, and although we tried again, he abided our only onliving child.

It became tellable, over the years, that my Grendel was strange, besides a misshapen skull that worsened as he grew. Great, and less limber than he should have been, he did not know his own strength. He harmed sundry of his playmates on befall, and I hark back to his frightened, bewildered uttering as I spelled that he had done that.

“But Momma, I didn’t mean to.”

I would foresaek him I knew, I understood, and wared him to be more careful. My lord spent time working with Grendel, minding to teach him how to hold his strength more abiden.

Then the day came, where, amid dreadful thunder and rain, Grendel anonly howled in bedeviln, and fell to the ground, writhing and clawing at his eyes. It took both my lord and I to pin his arms before he did stern scathe to himself. After a while, his body limpened and he only sobbed hushly.

I asked, “Grendel, my love? What’s wrong?”

“Monsters are eating my head,” he answered, his cry shaky through the tears.

My lord shifted him to his bed, and I made a haeldrink for the smarting. It took both of us to steady Grendel’s hands so he could grip the cup himself.

The twithe time it happened he wasn’t home, although it was another frightful storm. He knocked a playmate cold when they tried to help, and he had to be beaten down by sundry adult men. My boy, barely nine, could no longer be trusted to play with children his tide. I kept him home, and close even then. Closer still when the skies looked doomy.

By his eleventh year, we had little choosing but to bind him to his bed when the weather would start to wend. He did not like it, but he understood. I sat with him, minding to keep him lull during the worst, singing old songs and telling stories. A haeldrink at the first tremors helped keep him calmer, but at the worst, he still writhed and howled as if devilsick.

The rages started soon after that, rages he could not spell out afterwards.

I spoke with everyone -- my elders, my lord’s elders, the wise woman Edda, everyone. No one had inklings which helped sooth my loved son’s smarting or fits.

But in between the bad days, Grendel acted ever much the young boy he truly was, by turns sweet and waining, headstrong, helpful, and even sometimes surly. He soon nearly matched his father in height, and outmatched him in strength. The day the inn caught fire, it was Grendel who bolded the billowing liegbryne to hold open the fallen doors so that folk could get out. Had he not done so, more would have been lost. His burns healed, but the smarting wounds never altogether faded, the ones on his forehead and cheek outright of them. The townsfolks’ distrust grew as the twist the burns on his aspect did not lessen with time.

The next plant-tide, raiders came again, and my lord fell warding the hamlet.

We buried him next to the sister Grendel never knew, and were embittered.

It would oftrightly be understood that a lay worsens when one’s husband dies, but I did not awatch the quickness with which the hamlet turned on me . . . us both. Sickwilled by the scathe caused to his fairness by his own bold actions, bound by the fear of a fit that none had witnessed in sundry years, only heard, our neighbors and other townmen took to actively spurning Grendel, and I overheard much wicked, untrue claver. Had they truly forgotten the marks over his cheeks were from sparing their sons and daughters when they could not? The wild tales they made of mad deeds with my Grendel painted as the wretch, beggared belief.

The behandling slowly extended to me, as well. Shunned and spurned, I could not trust to my bonda’s brother for help, and my own kin were overreached already. My husband’s brother did not have the uprightness he had, and I broke his nose after a namely lewd saying followed by a hinting that my son be “rid” for my “own good.”

The distrustful mutters and hateful glances wore on my kindfeeling son, and the fits of rage began to rise. We afound that he could no longer abide music beyond my singing. Horns or other singing caused him noteworthy smarting, and he became more and more unbearing to loud sounds in whole. He grew still taller, a full head above any man near the shore, and then inches more. The lay unbearish, I began to search for a spot to forego us. Grendel needed room and hushness, where he need not hear the unwhispered lowspeak of “Monster!” that followed him.

Grendel was nigh eighteen when I was called to the hamlet about him.

Upon therecoming, I nigh saw he was bound and beat, and rather addled.

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked, beckoning at my son.

Angry cries came at me, but Hrothgar raised his hands for stillness. He made known. Grendel had been led on, and in his rage, killed an erstwhile playmate of years past. Weregild must be rendered, but the happenings and Grendel’s father’s bold warding in the name of the king meant it would only be straight outcasting.

I bitterly reminded the king of Grendel’s own bold actions, and that he still bore the scars and smarting. The angry muttering of the gathering turned to guilty stillness at the telling.

Hrothgar settled up to this, and dealt Grendel some leeway for gathering our ownings.

My husband’s brother wedged himself into the lawthing, and tried craving that all of my ownings be yielded to him for the breaking of his nose long before. Hrothgar merely snorted, as the man’s behaving was well known, but let he could lay ownership to the land we lived on.

We were given just a few days’ time to depart. I softly thanked the gods I had seen fit to be ready, and there was little left in our home to outtake. I had even outtook the small herd of sheep some weeks before, to an old forsaken hut by the swamp, and built them a working fence, with Grendel’s sturdy help. We would not be thoroughly bereft, and I would be well fit to keep us clothed.

My husband’s brother stood on steering us to see I did not take “too many dear goods” he “was owed,” and I ask-called other witnesses. The look he gave me made it clear he begrudged I had forestalled his true bent.

Grendel, dear Grendel, abided, addled and bewildered at what was happening. But he followed me hushly and did as I bid.

The bastard raged when he took in the mostly emptied homestead. The witnesses only snickered. Edda gave me a weighing look. She had known I was worried about Grendel, and had warned me to ready for such a need. I gave her a bitter smile.

The last of our ownings were easily outtaken from the house. While the bastard snarled at us, one of the other witnesses stood between he and me. “Do not give me wherefore to fight on her behalf,” he warned. “Your deeds are loathe to me as it is.”

I was grateful for the meager shielding, although I would have liked it more had the man ever stood up for Grendel or I these past years.

Grendel carried what I told him to, in a bundle that awed the watchers. I carried the rest, with also my bow. We left. I entrued we were not followed.

The salt marsh reeked with rot and mold, but it held life enough. Only the old wise woman Edda came here of free will, for the herbs which could be gathered nowhere else, but were needful to ply her trade. She would gield me for gathering those in her stead, in goods I could not make or find on my own.

The sheep fared well enough, learning to find the drier areas with eatable grass. The wool kept us in clothing, lambs gave some food, and milk for cheese. Other foods, Grendel and I found in the swamp. He learned which plants were safe readily enough, and he hunted large game with his club. Faster game, I snared or hunted with bow.

It was not an easy life, but it was fair and still. The hearth kept us warm and I had a small pot and a broad pan. The hut was made soft and homey with furs and hides. And upmost of all, I had my son.

We used the nearby cave for a shelter for the sheep, and to store some goods. Grendel liked to be there, as it was so cool and still.

He still had to be bound when the worst storms hit, but he seemed just a bit better here. The fits were fewer, and I hoped for the day they ended. Sadly, that was not to be.

Edda brought word that Hrothgar sought to build a new great hall at last, to again the one which had burned down. At first, this did not bother me at all. It shortly became clear that the stead and building of the hall were to bring sorrow to my Grendel.

The first frolic, filled with song and horns, and the deep thud of mugs being beat against boards, rolled like a dull thunder at our faraway hut. It was too much for Grendel, and I had to wrestle him into yielding, binding him to keep him from begetting himself wounded.

I was not lucky in holding him the next time, and he ran deeper into the swamp. I feared him lost, but he came back a day and a half later, worse for the wear. He brought me a deer he had caught during the fit, but he could not tell me where he had woken up from it.

The next time I failed to halt him. He stunned me while we fought, and I could not follow. I heard the shouts of anger and screams of fear from where the party had been. He came whither, with a few small wounds. He was distraught to learn he had laid me up, and haltingly told what he could hearken of what happened in the hamlet.

“I went into the hall, where the noise hurt most,” he said. “The door was blocked, but I forced it.”

The door fastened with a whole wooden beam, and he’d broken it. Oh, my son, what a warrior you could be, if only the devils didn’t scathe you.

“They slagged me and I fought them all. I hearken back men hitting me, and me throwing them.”

That unraveled his black eye and bruised knuckles. He’d fought them all, all at once.

“I just wanted them to hush! My head spun, and stabbed, and I felt sick. I hearken one man broke over the table when I threw him.”

The man probably had a broken back and was dead. Oh, Grendel, no.

Edda told me more. Grendel had killed one man and crippled two others, one of whom would never chew food again after his jaw was smashed. She looked fearful herself. “I may not be let to bring you any more goods, if this happens again.”

“I am undertaking to stop him,” I trothed. “There seem to be some songs that are worse than others, ones that he runs to instead of from.”

She asked which ones seemed to anger him worse, and drove him towards the hamlet instead of away. I answered as best as I could. She would try to allay them for less of those, or some kind of beckonhand to me, so I would have time to ready Grendel and bind him.

It was the best we could do. As the dwellers had turned their tales of him into a troll or something even worse, it even worked for a while. She swayed them that maddening him forethence was not helpful to their own frith. I owed her much.

Then came the day Edda breathlessly brought word about a wayfarer, Beowulf, who boasted he would end their “troll” worry once and for all. She chided hard to forbid the townmen from cheering on the madness, but she did not win. Hrothgar planned for a huge spree befitting such a ‘hero,’ even that very night, in part to draw Grendel in. I gave her what would be one last hug.

“You have been the only kith I have had besides Grendel these last years. Thank you.”

She grasped me also. “I hope this madness can be outdone. Your Grendel is not owed this.”

“I also hope.”

When Grendel came back later, I tried to allay him to settle down early. I even gave him the soothing haeldrinks, which would most often ease the fits. I couldn’t bear to tell him they were setting a trap for him, and he would not settle for storms that didn’t exist. At length, I did tell him.

“But, Momma, why?”

“They think you a monster, and want you dead.” I stroked his cheek. “You are my beloved son, and I want you alive. I beg you, let me do what I can to keep you from their trap.”

He yielded, and let me to bind him to his bed. I made him as restful as I could, and then set about doing everything I could to block out all sounds from outside of our walls. Every nook, every gap, I stuffed full of scraps of cloth and hide. The only light left was one of our few candles, sitting on the hearth. Even the smokehole was as blocked as I dared risk.

It almost worked. I misreckoned how keen this “hero” was for a win against an unwretched man gossiped into a monster. The large horn, which should only have been blown in times of raiders, sounded, and Grendel screamed in scathe. Thrice it blew, and the third time, Grendel shuddered and snapped his bindings.

I fought with him, trying to keep him home, with me, safe, alive. He grabbed me and flung me wide, and broke the door down. I fell to the floor and wept.

It took long, far too long, to soothe myself, but I steered myself to rise and shake off the worst of the grief-fear. Whatever the outcome, my boy would be wounded, and I set steeping a brew of elderberry and cicuta for pain. I readied swathings, and a dear few drops of honey to help against blight. I scrubbed and heated the fire iron, to sear any deep wounds.

Then I prayed to uncaring, blithe gods, that Grendel would come home to me, in wellbeing enough I could care for him, heal him, and take us elsewhere as soon as may be.

A hollow bellow of anger and hurt, alongside catcalls and jeers, decried such prayers. The hateful townmen would only be cheering so were it Beowulf who cried out in such a manner. Grief fought with rage, but I took small gladness in the boos-and-hisses. Either Grendel had scored a fair hit, or had escaped. Many shrieks of fear cried, followed by a welter of hushed calls. The faraway cries faded, and I reckoned that Grendel had, at the least, fled. The darkness of the night meant I dared not try to find him, or risk losing him utterly. I waited.

Seemingly forever later, I heard hurt weeping and a fretful, “Momma?” in the dark. I ran to the bawling to find my son, wretchedly scathed and missing an arm. I shouldered up under his good arm and helped him the last length home. Once there, I took stock of the wounds.

The arm was no clean cut of a sword, but instead showed forebodings of having been mostly torn off. The stump was a ragged, oozing mess with dripping blood and jutting bone. I did not, could not cry, not while Grendel looked at me with fearful eyes. “Will I be alright, Momma?”

I lied. So help me, I lied to him. Had I spoken the truth, I would have been helpless to ease his scathe. “As alright as I can make you, my love,” I said. I set about doing what I could. The state of the arm was such that searing was nigh undoable, and the swathings I had readied were not enough. Once I had it cleaned and wrapped, I helped him drink the brew. I settled him as best as I could.

I pressed a kiss to his forehead, and he asked me for a song. I did so as a short time more wouldn’t shift what was to be. He, thankfully, fell asleep into a restless, hurtful slumber. I drew my cloak around me, and gave him one last worried look, before slipping out of the hut to walk to the hamlet.

I could spare no standing. Perhaps Edda knew some herbs, and I would beg and belittle myself before Hrothgar for the slightest of kindness. Grendel and I would withdraw to the cave and scrape by as we could.

The hamlet was busy, and I drew near carefully, hood hiding my cheeks for the little good it would do. All of them knew me. Even the dogs knew me, though they did not out me. They were still trustworthy.

There was much worriment at the great hall, and I watched from far behind the crowd, hidden behind the hawthorn bushes.

I saw what they did and my head spun. Was this real and not some awful dream?

Grendel’s arm hung from a nail above the hall’s broad doors. A token to hate and fear.

I overheard Hrothgar announce, “They will sing of this deed for a thousand years.”

And that’s when the rage took me.

I could perhaps forgive Beowulf for killing Grendel. It had been the fairest fight of all. Grendel did only what gods had made him to do. But Hrothgar talked smugly of the deed, of the killing of my poor, darling boy. He bragged of it with blood tokens.

Hrothgar would not boast of the killing of a beloved dog, taken over by the madness. Yet he would boast of the killing of my son.

Any man would call bloodfeud for his son, his brother, his father for that shame. My son had none of those to call out this monster for his words. He had only me.

I would stand for him.

I turned for home to make ready.

I heard shouts, and knew I’d been seen.

I ran. There was nothing else I could do.

The shouts became jeers and my breathing wracked with sobs. I’d sworn a blood oath, and now I ran.

One voice stood out. That was Aeschere. Years ago, Grendel had beaten his son hard enough to wound his eye, and he’d never forgiven. He followed me, though my lead was good and my legs stayed strong. I hoped he’d slow and give up, with nothing but richly shaming slights, but while he slowed, he didn’t stop.

I squished along the high ground and onto the spit where my hut stood. He was some steps behind and I had just time. I barred the door, caught my breath, and took a drink of water, followed by a mouthful of cheese. Then I set about readying.

Aeschere was a mouthy sort, and I knew he was undertaking to madden me to come out, rather than break in himself. If I thought that would be the end of it, I’d stand his slights through gritted teeth, but once he grew bored, he’d try to draw others with him. He wanted a fight with an old woman, and I would make sure he had it.

When we fled years before, Grendel carried a hefty crate for me, unhindered. It was in the back of the hut, next to my bed, where it served as a board, a chair, and a stowing chest. I swept garb and pouches off it, opened the lid, and dragged out the clothes within to dump them on the ground. I wanted what lay beneath.

I pulled my lord’s byrnie from the chest. It was darkened with age, but its rings were well-wrought and it would ward me. I no longer had the underpadding. It was long since used for bairn cloths. My smock and a winter kirtle of thick wool would have to do. It was only for one fight.

The armor was snug. I was not a young girl anymore. It wore well enough, though tight on my chest, and dragged a bit on my hips. I grabbed the tails and wrenched hard, bursting the three lowest rings at the split, and then it shifted as it should.

I took the time to pull the bedspread around my boy, and check the swathings, which were soaked through with dark blood. I carefully bound another wrapping over them, knowing it would bring about little. Lacking a wonderwork from the gods who’d never seen fit to give me scraps, his time in this world grew short. He moaned and twitched, his wracked shoulder aware of every waft of air, the mattress, even my nearness. I kissed his forehead gently, from above, and went back to my task.

Behind the door, well covered in dust, were my other needs. A thick leathern hat with a string to tie it, a light but sturdy shield strengthened with iron strips and rawhide edging, and my lord’s sword. I drew it from the sheath and looked it over.

There was some small amount of brown bloom, that should be tallowed and scoured before it turned to rust. There was no time for that now. My foe awaited, and I had a blood oath to fulfill.

I stood and breathed deeply, relearning the weight of armor, and learning the heft of this sword. When I heard him speak as he circled around to the lee again, I pulled the door and stepped out.

“Hello, Aeschere,” I said, with a sweet lilt that didn’t hide my anger. “Would you care to dance?”

The look in his eyes told me he hadn’t reckoned a fair fight. He clutched and reached for his sword, stuttering as he did so. He almost said something, perhaps to allay me, perhaps to mislead. But his mind caught up and grasped it was worthless.

He dropped, raised his sword, and waited for me to strike in anger. Oh, Aeschere, this was not my first fight, nor quite my last. I only smiled, with a flick of tongue on lips to tease him. He shifted and froze, and I stamped my foot. That startled him and I laughed.

“Fearful, are we?” I asked, taking a half step forward.

He took the bait.

I am not small, but he was taller. But women steady better with sword forward and shield at a slant, while men raise the shield forward and the blade back. He skipped forward to where he could just reach me with his greater height, reckoning I could not do in kind.

But that put him a foot into my reach and I struck, throwing out my hand and whipping my wrist. I swung my sword low and it bit into the hide sheathing his thigh. It did not cut through, but the hit staggered him. His blow stumbled and skipped off my shield, and I pressed at once.

He struck back with a stiff swing that cut a deep nick into the hide edge of my shield, and we scrabbled around, swapping blows to little clout. He was hurt but little, but he was startled and scared. He thought to overpower me, to break and shame me, and perhaps rape me. Once met, he dare not back down from a mere woman, even if it meant a fight in sooth. And if he were to lose?

His blood-rage brought him in hard and fast, with a blow that half-cracked my shield and dented the boss. I grunted and powered into it, trying to get my sword tip under his shield and to his belly. I outwitted him, but it was a soft thrust and didn’t pierce. He backed away fast, and I flicked the tip up, catching his bare forearm. Skin parted and blood flowed. I pressed again, and my next thrust just barely cut his breast under the hardened hide.

This is the true heart of fighting, not the great endings of the sagas. Two warriors cut at each other until one is weakened enough to yield, flee or die. Neither of us could give or run. In his recklessness to make a name, he settled that one of us would die this day.

His next blow broke the other part of my shield and strained my arm, the shock jarring my elbow. My hand went numb, and pain blazed from elbow to shoulder. But he overreached with his weakened arm, and I hacked it, cutting flesh and bone so blood gushed freely.

Growling in pain, it almost seemed he’d flee, but he knew how that ended. He dropped his shield and swapped his sword to his left. Now unshielded, he nevertheless had a weapon on my unwarded side. And he was angry and hurt.

It was all I could do to raise the half-shield in my wounded arm, shriek in pain as his sword crashed down, and drop under the onslaught. That put me low, and I drove my point up into his belly. Blood and gall spilled, and I smelled the stench of cut innards. As my cry of pain withered, his rose, knowing he was dead.

Death would not come at once, though, and might take days. His sword was still live, as was the hand behind it.

I clutched the scraps of my shield just as he struck. Through the slivered wood and the ring shirt it felt like a blow from a club, driving the wind from me. Spots before my eyes told me I had no time. All I could do was strike again, this time cutting his thigh. That staggered him back and to the ground, where he sought to rise and squealed, and then again.

I drew in sips of air, then breaths, and my eyes cleared. Taking in a deep draught of damp swamp fog, I staggered around his fallen body. I was a widow and a woman. There had been no worthiness given, and I gave none back. I batted his sword arm aside, raised my own, shouted a war cry, and chopped.

I would come back to this. After I saw to my son.

I leaned the sword against the wall, stumbled through the hut, and into the small room. Before I opened the door, I knew it.

Grendel’s life had slipped away while Aeschere and I fought. The man had won that much, forestalling me being at my son’s ending, and thwarting Grendel my soothing. Oh, how I burned.

With my left arm scathed, I couldn’t even grant my son a fitting burial. Here he would stay.

I tumbled Aeschere’s sundered head, still wearing a look of shock and deep throe, into a sack, and slung it over my shoulder along with his shield. Little good it would do me, but it was better to have it, and my showing should rank.

I walked the long, dreary way back the way I’d run.

This time the crowd was silent, perhaps knowing no good would come of this.

They parted for me, afraid or athreat, it didn’t matter now. I trod forward, armed and girded, and stood before the hall, not looking at the grisly token, hung carefully as if a gem, which would only bring me woe.

“Hrothgar, I call you out. You have wronged a widow, and wronged an orphan living with a curse. You are unfit to lead. You lack the hand to hold your men, and let them run wild after a widow, with foul thought.”

I knelt and laid the sack down, grasped the bottom and pulled. Aeschere’s head rolled free, tumbling across the dirt as his nose, chin and backbone bumped. There were cries of shock and dread among the watchers, and I heard a shriek from his daughter. Part of me wanted to be kindly, motherly, but I choked that down and kept my heart hard.

I pointed and firmly said, “Beowulf, I call you out for killing a man with a cursed mind, knowing full well he had no kin to stand for him.

“Instead of a father or brother, you will meet me to feud. I call my son murdered, and I name you the murderer.”

There was stone stillness.

“Beowulf, if you are to be a man, you will meet me alone in the cave in the marsh, the only place my son could flee from his devils. One old woman should be no match for you. Not after you slew such a monster as a man crippled by headaches and madness.”

I turned my back and walked. I was half sure they’d kill me right there, but I was a woman, and whatever worthiness they kept let me leave unharmed. The only friend I had left made a wave toward me, but stopped when I shook my head sharply. This was not Edda’s fight, and she was the only hope our tale might be told with some lot of truth. I could not risk her as well.

There was no proud end to come, no frith. There was nowhere further to flee from the nearness of folk.

I returned to the hut, to kneel beside my sweet boy and beg the gods to meet him kindly. After all, it was they who chose him as a plaything for their games.

I downed the strongest of haeldrinks I had left, ones I reserved for Grendel’s worst days, to soften the hurt of my shattered arm and broken heart. I splinted my arm straight, at least giving me the grip to clumsily heft a shield.

No burial was possible, but I was able to drag the fittings close to the bed, dump out the little oil I had, and kick one weakened side of the hut until it sunk lower. The fire could take it from there. I sought an ember from the hearth, blew it bright, and watched the bloom dance merrily on the makeshift bier. That done, I left the dregs of my life to burn brightly with dark, sooty smoke, and walked to the cave. I brought my sword, Aeschere’s shield, this write-telling, and a crust of bread.

Now I see a body striding over the dunes and the brush, armed and ready. Far behind him are cheers at the thought of the death of a widow and her cursed son. I am bitter, with little to find light in, but there is one last mark in my tale.

I hope that Edda, the wisest and kindest woman I ever knew, will come looking, and think to check the spot where we stored the more witherable herbs in the cool cave. That is where I will leave this write-telling.

I take heart in one warm thought. My lord fell fighting, and feasts in the Valhǫll. Grendel was killed in clash, and has also gone before me to the great Asgarð. When this is over, I shall meet again with my love and my dearest son. What this world never gave me, the next will. I am calm within. Perhaps the All Father will even gift us the soul of my little daughter.

I will close this now. There are no more words to quill. The rest must be deeds.

My wits are not lost in my sorrow. I have no false dreams about how this will end. Beowulf is a skilled warrior, and I am only the mother of a monster. I was lucky once, and now half crippled.

But if they will sing of him for a thousand years, they must also sing of me.

END

Michael Z. Williamson is variously an immigrant from the UK and Canada, a retired veteran of the U.S. Army and USAF, a nationally best-selling and award-winning SF author and editor, and a consultant on disaster preparedness. In his free time, he is a bladesmith, a gunsmith, and a reenactor who favors the Viking era. He lives near Indianapolis with his wife, Jessica, their children, and a variety of animals that are staff or livestock.

Jessica Schlenker is a professional geek with an MS in information security and a BS in biology. Her interests include homesteading, gaming, and reading (and dissecting) scientific papers in various fields. She lives with her husband, Michael Z. Williamson, and their children, cats, and her various homesteading animals.

To Catch a Crow: A Bronze Legion Story

by Jason Cordova and Melissa Olthoff

“This is the only place in the explored universe where you can get a perfectly marbled Grade 1A ribeye steak off Mars Primus.”

Sergeant Miguel Carvalho, loadmaster and crew chief of Bronze Raven Four, stared up at the dilapidated building, then looked back at the speaker. If it had been anyone else, Carvalho wouldn’t have believed a word coming out of their mouth. But since it was Sergeant Emmett “Ordo” Ord, 4th Squad, Bravo Company of the Bronze Legion speaking, Carvalho decided to give his longtime friend the benefit of the doubt.

Gunrunner’s was really nothing more than a bar that happened to serve food, and designed as such by an entrepreneurial mind. Half of it was an open patio, with party lights strung over the expansive area and tiki torches casting a flickering glow across the picnic-style scarred wooden tables. With its strategically placed palm trees, rum barrels, and skull and crossbones motif, the place leaned heavily into the tropical island theme popular in this section of the city. Inside followed the same decorating scheme, with the addition of dark wood paneling, high ceilings with lazily spinning fans, and a bar that stretched across the entire back wall.

It definitely did not give off “quality food” vibes to Carvalho.

“This place is where legionnaires come to get into fights with sailors,” he muttered as a pair of Navy personnel staggered out from the entrance. They split off, one going to the left and the other right, and simultaneously began vomiting in the bushes nearby. “Classy joint.”

“They don’t charge you a kidney or two for real Martian beef here,” Ord said. “The drunken brawls just add to the ambience. Plus, I know the manager. He promised me two 22-ounce rib eyes from Grade 1A Martian beef for a keg of Old Steverson Dark Stout. I provided, and now he’s delivering.”

“One day you’re going to tell me how you got a keg of Old Steverson into your berthing space without me noticing.”

“Maybe. But not today. You coming?” Ord asked. Carvalho nodded and started to enter before a familiar giggling drew his attention back to the street. He silently groaned as visions of his quiet evening of steak and beer quickly ran out the door.

Corporals Emi Hayashi and Iolana Hekekia, collectively known as HeyHey by everyone in the squadron, were prancing down the street having a grand old time. The duo were his door gunners on Bronze Raven Four and ultimately his responsibility. Tiny, blue-eyed and dark haired with matching attitudes and all the savage joy when they got to shoot their Aries miniguns, they were a menace whenever they were on a mission, and trouble the rest of the time.

And judging by the looks they were giving poor Corporal Andrew McDowell, a fellow dropship door gunner from Alpha Company, Eagle Squadron, their mission involved shenanigans aplenty. He could only guess as to what they were up to, but none of it promised to be good. Like two barracuda moving through the waters to strike at some unsuspecting flounder, they flanked him on opposite sides simultaneously, each pressing their bodies against his.

Carvalho could almost imagine the young corporal’s unsuspecting, shit-eating grin.

“He has no idea what sort of night he’s in for . . . oh, shit,” Carvalho muttered as it suddenly dawned on him just what they were doing as they sauntered off with McDowell, drinks in hand for all of them. He also spotted two, possibly three familiar faces in the crowd nearby.

He should have recognized the game sooner. Normally he wouldn’t have any issue with the game, since it was Eagle Squadron who were being played. The problem was, HeyHey didn’t recognize that the tables were about to be turned on them. Behind the trio, Carvalho spotted the door gunners from Bronze Eagle 3 following close by.

“To catch a crow?” Ord asked, a knowing smirk on his face.

Carvalho nodded as a sense of doom crept over him. It was a harmless game designed more to embarrass aircrew members than anything else. The rules were simple: get a Crow good and drunk, and have them report in to the wrong unit at the end of liberty call. The crew chief of the dropship as well as the pilot of said bird would then have to go and collect their misplaced Crows, much to the bemusement of all involved—and embarrassment for the pilot of the dropship.

Bronze Raven Four—or Raven Squadron as a whole, since Major Nikki “Voodoo” Ellingwood took command—had never fallen victim to the game. Others had, much to their constantly reminded embarrassment. He wasn’t about to see that lucky streak end. Not while he had anything to say about it.

“Yep.”

“Last chance to get a ribeye beautifully cut like this for at least six months,” Ord told him. “You know the planetary supervisor at Aurora is a cheapskate.”

“Argh. Don’t remind me.” Carvalho looked inside Gunrunner’s. Most, if not all of Bravo Company of the Bronze Legion were already inside and drinking, with Navy personnel from the PNV Perseverance mingling throughout, and some locals to boot. He could smell the all-too familiar scents of alcohol, food, and violence in the air. Gunrunner’s promised an interesting and fun night, even with his prosthetic leg. It was an excellent chance to blow off some steam before they shipped out to Aurora.

But then there was HeyHey, out in the wild and unsupervised, doing HeyHey things . . .

“Good luck.” Ord interpreted his friend’s hesitation correctly and slapped him on the back. “I’ll think fondly of you while enjoying my ribeye. Rare, seasoned only with salt and pepper, seared on a skillet, all while drinking a pint of Old Steverson dark stout.”

“Fuck my life . . .” Carvalho whispered miserably as he limped off to try to keep HeyHey out of too much trouble.

#

“He’s such a lightweight!” Hayashi crooned, dark eyes glittering with mischief and malice as she stared at McDowell over the rim of her glass.

Their fellow Crow was going to rue the day he’d decided to mess with them in gunner school. He’d had the nerve to hit on both of them, separately— because apparently he was as dumb as he was hot—and had tried to play them. Too bad for him, they had already been nearly inseparable by that point, so they’d caught onto his game quickly.

Now, they were going to play him.

“This is going to be too easy!” Hekekia added as she took another drink. McDowell wobbled on his feet as he eyed the half-filled shot glass, then dramatically brought it closer to his face to get a better view of it. Hekekia cackled as McDowell nodded happily and took another sip. “He can’t even keep up with us!”

“I know, right?!” Hayashi grinned happily as another round of shots landed on their table. “We’re gonna finally catch a Crow, and not even Carvalho will be mad at us.”

“Shhh! Don’t call the devil by name or he’ll hear us!”

“Right, right.” Hayashi held out her pinky finger. “Before we begin, we have to promise each other. No mudslides.”

Hekekia wrapped her pinky around Hayashi’s and nodded solemnly. “No mudslides, no matter what.”

Both gunners darted nervous glances around the bar before lifting their next shots in a toast.

“Here’s to honor! Get on her, stay on her, if you can’t come in her . . .”

#

“. . . come on her!” the rest of the bar chorused the toast, then cheered raucously.

Carvalho grimaced as HeyHey both pounded another shot of the blue liquor, barely registering that McDowell was acting drunker than he really was while merely sipping his drink. In their eagerness to get McDowell hammered, neither HeyHey seemed aware that they were in the process of getting properly wasted themselves . . . or that McDowell’s fellow Crows were drinking nearby.

Moving through the crowd of locals, he kept a close eye on HeyHey while ensuring he didn’t step on any toes. His prosthetic leg was good—very good, in fact, which is why he was able to become a Crow after his accident occurred—but he wouldn’t know if he’d actually trod on a foot until the cursing began.

Carvalho knew his gunners were sneaky and paranoid. If they spotted him, they would scatter and then he’d be all night chasing them down. So he was careful to approach from behind them, never taking his eyes off his targets . . . which is why he didn’t see the locals until it was too late.

“Where do you think you’re going, friend?” a grizzled older man asked, stepping between Carvalho and his gunners and holding up his hand.

A pair of young men appeared on either side of him, one bearing a striking resemblance to the older, the other with a badly crooked nose from one too many bar fights. Both were dressed neatly however, and neither seemed inebriated.

They were also about twice his size.

Shit.

Before he could back away, they grabbed his upper arms, their grip strong but not painful.

“I’m not one to judge, friend, but those girls are far too young for a man of your . . . maturity.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “And it didn’t look as if you had good intentions.”

Carvalho opened his mouth to agree that he hadn’t and HeyHey deserved it, but then realized these were civilians who might not understand military discipline. In the time it took him to figure out a better way to phrase it, the second man tugged him around, away from his gunners, who hadn’t so much as looked up from teasing McDowell.

“We don’t need anyone starting trouble in here.” The man who looked like a younger, less grizzled version of the first frowned, his grip tightening. “And what kind of men would we be if we let someone start trouble with girls half his size?”

A small crowd had formed around him. For a brief moment Carvalho almost fought against the pressure, but then noticed the attention he was starting to draw. Some of the others in the bar might not take too kindly to someone beating their buddy with their own arm.

“We want girls to feel safe when they hit bars like ours,” the third man added firmly for the small crowd’s benefit. “Time for you to leave, pal.”

Carvalho started to struggle but stopped as he realized it was futile. If he really put effort into freeing himself, there would be injuries and hard feelings. Not something he particularly wanted at the moment, considering his prosthetic. As it was, the notion that these locals were trying to protect young women like Hayashi and Hekekia was actually comforting—even if he’d been swept up by overzealous protectors quite by accident.

“Fuck my life.”

With a defeated sigh from Carvalho and a resounding cheer from the onlookers, the trio of men tossed him from the pier and into the shallow marshy waters below.

#

“Aw, damn it,” Hayashi muttered as she spotted Carvalho being unceremoniously dropped into the marshy bank just outside the bar’s rear entrance. Like every other bar in the district, this one featured a short pier for small pleasure craft to tie up at. It also doubled as a location to toss drunks into the water without putting them in too much danger.

Hekekia followed her gaze and groaned when she spotted their spluttering loadmaster. “This is all your fault!”

“My fault?” Hayashi scowled at her best friend. “How is this my fault?!”

“You said his name and he heard you! Now Carvalho’s gonna spoil our fun!” Hekekia declared dramatically before she downed another shot of the tasty blue liquor. She leaned against McDowell and poked him in the ribs. “Hey, Asshole McDreamy. We need to find somewhere else to drink.”

“Asshole McDreamy?” McDowell sputtered indignantly around his half-finished drink. “What the fuck?”

Red washed across Hayashi’s face. “You weren’t supposed to tell him we call him that!”

Hekekia shrugged. “Sorry, I meant Asshole.”

“That’s not better!” Hayashi slurred as she smacked Hekekia on the arm. Then she spotted Carvalho dragging himself out of the marsh and staggered back a step. The sergeant looked pissed, and his eyes were definitely looking for them. Neither was quite ready to be found. “We gotta move, now. But where to next?”

The duo shared a look before staring expectantly at McDowell.

“Toadies?” he suggested after a moment.

“Toadies,” they answered and grinned in drunken anticipation.

#

“Of all the times for the locals to try to protect a Crow from a seemingly lecherous old man . . .” Carvalho growled as he tried to get the worst of the foul-smelling water from his jacket. “They’re not even innocent girls! They’re menaces to both society and my sanity wrapped in innocent camouflage.”

After a second he gave up and tossed the jacket into a trash receptacle. His shoes squished with every step and promised to smell even worse than his jacket. If any of his outfit survived the experience, he would be shocked. He was just grateful his prosthetic leg was none the worse for the unexpected swim. Serving in the Legion came with its dangers, but they tried to do right by their legionnaires and had equipped him with the best prosthetic available. He never quite forgot it wasn’t his original limb, but it was as close as science could get.

“I just wanted a steak dinner . . .” he growled.

As he carefully circled the bar he’d just been unceremoniously tossed out of, he searched through the wide windows for his drunk gunners—and found them scampering off through the crowded street with McDowell in tow. In the next instant, the girls tugged their prey down a torchlit side street, one barely visible from the main road. On the plus side, the Bronze Eagle gunner had looked as if he were regretting his life choices in targeting HeyHey. On the very not plus side, he was still playing the game, and McDowell’s other Bronze Eagle buddies were still following the trio of miscreants, casually turning down that same alley.

On the “whyyy had he been stuck with the most annoying gunners ever” side, there was only one place that particular side street led to on miserable evenings such as this. As luck would have it, he’d been there once or twice himself back in his heady, youthful days. Back when he’d had all four of his limbs, and a penchant for picking fights with sailors.

“Fuck my life,” he repeated for the umpteenth time that night. “They’re headed to Toadies.”

#

Toadies wasn’t any sort of official bar. In fact, the place prided itself on its roving location. Originally started as a man on a trike who rode around the outskirts of the Legion base selling alcohol, he found success when he started having massive beach parties at various locations along the coast. Bonfires, cold beer, and roasted barbeque were a siren’s call for any and all service personnel who were looking for something a little different.

Officially, Toadies was off-limits to Navy personnel. However, every good officer and senior NCO in the Protectorate Navy knew some orders were going to be ignored and adjusted accordingly. “Never give an order you know will not be followed” was universally acknowledged. Given that every Navy senior officer who took command thought that “this time it would be different,” though, orders were given that were not necessarily enforced to their strictest of standards.

One small oversight, though. The official ban didn’t extend to the Legion. How the base commander missed this, nobody knew. Or perhaps it was just one of the vagaries of life in the military, deliberately set up by the commander to try to enforce the unenforceable.

But because of this, loopholes were found.

And exploited.

Vigorously.

The mix at Toadies was 50/50 of Navy personnel and Legionnaires, which was just the perfect recipe for disaster. Throw in the fact that many local girls, working and otherwise, tended to find their way to Toadies to see how much money drunken legionnaires and sailors were willing to part with, and one came to understand the reasoning behind the ban in the first place.

A ban that HeyHey was only peripherally aware of. Dropship pilots and their aircrew, their Crows, were Legion.

“Toadies is the best,” Hekekia said, grinning around the drunken crowd with wide eyes and popping her hips to the wild beat. The sound system for the outdoors, roving bar was killer. “Why didn’t we come here sooner?”

“I know, right?” Hayashi snagged a trio of cheap plastic cups filled to the brim with frosty amber beer and tried to dance at the same time. It went medium. For a second, she stared mournfully at the half-full cups, then shrugged and handed McDowell the lowest, forgetting they were supposed to be getting him drunk. “Drink up, Asshole! Shoot, I mean . . . um, Andrew?”

McDowell sighed and sipped at his beer while the girls tapped their cups together and chugged. As Hayashi tossed her empty cup into a trash bin, she noticed he didn’t seem to be having as much fun, which was bad. It took her alcohol-soaked brain a few seconds to remember why that was bad. Her eyes widened. If Asshole McDreamy wasn’t having fun, he might leave, and then they wouldn’t be able to finally catch a Crow! She shot Hekekia a desperate look, but her bestie was too busy shaking her ass to notice.

Fine. Hayashi would be the bold one this time.

“Come on, McDowell. We’re dancing!”

She missed his hand the first time, and he had to steady her when she nearly faceplanted into the sand on the second attempt. That was okay. She had his hand now, mission accomplished . . . even if he was laughing at her. Shrugging, because laughter was better than boredom, she tugged him toward the nearest bonfire, snagging another full beer as she went. Hekekia followed, dancing along at McDowell’s heels, a full cup in each hand. She didn’t spill a drop.

Dancing was the best idea they’d had all night. Hayashi grinned up at McDowell, and he grinned back, no signs of boredom now. Hekekia danced around them, shaking her ass and singing along with the popular song at the top of her lungs. For just a minute, Hayashi forgot about the game in favor of just having fun and joined in. Even McDowell sang the last verse in a shockingly good baritone.

Then the song changed. Slow, sultry, with a heavy beat that whispered of sleepless nights and fun life choices. Hayashi paused. They’d wanted to mess with McDowell for how he’d treated them at gunner school, not give him the wrong idea. McDowell had also frozen, something like panic in his eyes as his gaze darted from her to her drunk bestie. He held up his hands and seemed on the verge of saying something.

And then there was a loud smack, and Hekekia jumped in startlement. Beer sloshed out of the cup in each hand, and she whirled around to confront the guy who had just slapped her ass.

“Ew no, not you.” Her lip curled in disgust. “You don’t get to touch. You’re not Asshole McDreamy.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?!”

Hekekia ignored McDowell and threw both drinks into the guy’s face. Hayashi cackled and threw her drink too. Ride or die, bitches!

Her aim was less than perfect.

Instead of hitting the offending jerk, her drink smacked an enlisted Navy guy square in the back of the head. He whirled around with an angry shout, droplets of beer flying off his soaked hair. He spotted the guy who had assaulted Hekekia and decided to hit first and ask questions never. The two men slammed into a group of legionnaires, knocking plates loaded with delicious barbeque out of their hands. With shouts of anger and understandable dismay, the legionnaires jumped into the fight.

“Um, oops?” Hayashi whispered, swaying on her feet.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” McDowell mumbled, definite panic in his eyes now. He grabbed both girls and pushed them into a stumbling run. “Time to go have fun elsewhere, Crows!”

The brawl was definitely spreading, with more sailors and legionnaires joining in. Hayashi barely had a moment to realize what some mysterious individual—definitely not her, nope nope nope—had started before McDowell yanked her backward. In the next instant, he staggered from a blow to the jaw. More Crows appeared as if by magic from the depths of the crowd, and the chants of “fight! fight! fight!” began to go up as the new arrivals plowed into Navy and Legion alike with reckless abandon.

Asshole McDreamy had been right. It was time to find fun elsewhere.

#

“Watch it, asshole!” a sailor drunkenly slurred and shoved Carvalho aside with an elbow as the brawl started to spread his direction. Already off-balance thanks to the uneven, sandy ground, it was all he could do to keep himself upright. Unfortunately, this meant grabbing a convenient legionnaire to keep on his feet.

“Hey, balara!” the legionnaire angrily yelled before catching himself as recognition dawned on his cragged, scarred face. “Oh, fech. Sorry, tasawa. Didn’t recognize you. You good, Crow?”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it, Master Sergeant Briggs,” Carvalho said as he turned his best glare onto the offending sailor.

Unfortunately, his basilisk gaze didn’t deter the young sailor. Given the bottle of high proof hooch in one hand and the very inappropriately attired young lady clinging to the other, the man’s better decision making skills had long vacated the premises. All that remained now was alcohol, libido, and youthful stupidity.

Dismissing the man as unimportant, Carvalho brought himself up to his full height and scanned the crowd for HeyHey. They were nowhere to be seen. The brawl, though, was growing worse. It was a living, breathing thing that swallowed all in its path. It promised to be epic, and it was just his luck that he had no time to properly appreciate what was to come.

“Just gotta deal with a little problem,” he added absently to Briggs.

“Who you callin’ little, pops?” the sailor squawked, clearly offended and looking for trouble. Carvalho blinked as four equally inebriated Navy boys appeared next to the drunk. The girl on the sailor’s arm, sensing trouble, showed more intelligence than all of the men present and scooted. “We gonna fuck you up, old man. Try me.”

“Oh, for the love of . . .”

Carvalho prided himself on staying cheerful in the face of adversity. It had gotten him through the loss of his leg, had gotten him through losing his place in his original legionnaire squad, it had even gotten him through aircrew training. Unfortunately, a positive attitude just wasn’t going to cut it tonight. His temper snapped.

“You know what? After the night I’ve had? I should be eating a steak and drinking a pint of dark stout with my best friend but no, I’m here dealing with a little prick who thinks he and his Navy bitch friends are hot shit! Fuck it.” Carvalho pulled off his ruined shirt and cracked his knuckles. “We can call this my fucking therapy session or something. Let’s fucking go.”

With that, Carvalho drove his forehead directly into the bridge of the younger man’s nose. The sailor yowled in surprise and pain. He staggered back and his hand went to his nose. Blood was already pouring out through his fingers.

“You broke my nose!”

“Pussy,” Carvalho growled and gut-punched the whining sailor for good measure. Gasping something unintelligible, he dropped unceremoniously to the sand. His buddies, not sure what just happened, swarmed the crew chief.

He was ready for them.

Or so he thought.

Experience in fights can carry someone a long way, but youthful exuberance can sometimes overcome it.

A blow caught his ribs. Another glanced off his jaw, just enough to hurt but not do too much damage. He drove an elbow into someone’s face—hopefully one of Nosey’s buddies—and was rewarded with a cry of pain. A riotous howl erupted from Briggs’ throat and suddenly every single legionnaire within the vicinity began tossing around sailors.

For a brief moment it appeared the brawl would be over before it really began. The Navy in the immediate surrounding area were outnumbered three to one, and it was looking bad for them. Unfortunately for Carvalho, the initial fight off to the side near where he’d lost HeyHey had merged with his, and suddenly what had initially been nothing more than a small tussle turned into a full-on Category 5 free-for-all, the sort that would probably go down in legend.

The next five minutes were nothing but a blur as Carvalho did everything he could to simply remain on his feet as more and more sailors joined in. Legionnaires, clearly afraid they were going to miss out on all the fun, were surrounding him and trying to get in some freebies as well. Fortunately, Briggs was making it clear to the new arrivals whose side Carvalho was on so he didn’t have to worry about being outnumbered ten to one.

Someone tried wrapping their arms around him from behind. That mystery individual was rewarded with the back of Carvalho’s skull being driven into his face. A crunch, a cry of pain, and then suspicious silence. He turned around as the arms released him and saw Briggs standing there, holding the offending sailor in the air with both hands. The scarred face of the older legionnaire was filled with bemusement. The sailor’s? No amusement could be seen anywhere.

“Navy balaras seem to like it from the back, ke?” He shook the sailor like a chew toy as his Passovan accent grew thicker. Carvalho could see the terrified look on the sailor’s face and almost wanted to say something before deciding to let Briggs have his fun. The guy was a war hero, after all. Who was he, a lowly Crow, to interrupt someone like that? “Let me show you how Legion does it!”

“No permanent injuries!” Carvalho managed to get out before the offending Navy guy was heaved into the nearby waters. Hooting laughter erupted from Briggs’ throat as more sailors were tossed into the shallow, smelly waters.

“You like water, Navy fechs?”

It quickly became evident that no, they did not. Laughter erupted as more sailors ended up in the drink. Carvalho smiled grimly at the sight of sailors sputtering as they climbed out of the marshy waters along the beach. At least he wasn’t the only one who would be returning to his command smelling like the musky brinewater of Yortugan Bay.

His moment of gratification passed rather abruptly as his original attacker came back for a second go. And this time he brought friends.

Five chaotic minutes of sheer, unadulterated fun later, Carvalho stood panting over the last sailor, his knuckles hurting something fierce. It was one thing to throw a punch, but another entirely to throw a good one. He’d landed a few solid jabs but for the most part, the only real good one that had landed had flattened the offending sailor. When he woke up, he was going to have one doozy of a headache. The other three who’d joined their Navy buddy had run into the proverbial chainsaw of one Master Sergeant Briggs, 1st Squad, Bravo Company.

Briggs looked no worse for wear, a broken smile on his ruined face, blood smeared on his cheek. Carvalho didn’t know if it was his or someone else’s, and didn’t bother to ask. Two hulking legionnaires were flanking the big man. They’d come running the moment the fight between the Navy and the Legion had really broken out, it seemed, and had formed a protective ring around Carvalho and his assailants.

Legionnaires always looked out for their Crows.

Each and every one looked as though they’d just had the time of their life. The same could not be said about the sailors, though.

Roughly two dozen were down in the sand in various degrees of pain. None appeared to have been permanently damaged, which made Carvalho feel a little better about the brawl in general. The sailor who’d puffed up on him was still on his ass, moaning about his nose being broken a second time. The little prick had deserved it, but Carvalho ignored him as he continued to survey the area. The fight had clearly been a long time coming, judging by the complete lack of locals or legionnaires on the ground.

“Shit,” he growled as he remembered the reason he’d come to Toadies in the first place. “HeyHey.”

It was slow going through the crowd as it began to disperse. His prosthetic slipped more than once on a sandy dune, a painful reminder of why he’d been pulled out of active duty Legion and rotated over to being a crew chief and loadmaster on a dropship after the training accident four years prior. Even the best prosthetics the Legion could buy weren’t as good as the real thing.

There were a few legionnaires sitting on the sand, still drinking, but only one or two sported any indications there’d been a massive brawl not ten minutes prior. Plausible deniability was still a thing in the Legion. Nobody wanted to report back to their command with evidence they not only had been in a fight, but lost it as well. He wanted to nod in satisfaction and have a drink with the victorious warriors, but HeyHey was still missing. His search continued.

Eventually he stumbled across their initial target, poor Corporal McDowell. The gunner lay on the sandy dune, groaning through his split lips. He’d clearly taken more punishment than he had given, but at least he was conscious. Mostly. His buddies were with him, trying to get him to his feet.

Carvalho decided to be “chivalrous” and helped them, gripping McDowell by the front of his shirt and hauling him to his feet by sheer frustration alone. He shook the dazed gunner until a flicker of awareness appeared in his eyes.

“Son, I’m only going to ask you this once.” He leaned closer, noting the exact moment McDowell realized who he was. “Where the fuck are my gunners?”

“Don’t know, Sergeant.” McDowell turned his head and spat blood on the sand. “Got them clear of the fight, but we got swept up in it before we could follow.”

Curling his lip in disgust, Carvalho let him go, not caring if he stayed on his feet or not. He had to find HeyHey before things really went south.

Somewhere in the distance, the shrill whistle of shore patrol announcing that it was on its way cut through the cheering and celebrating. A gong rang three times and people began to rapidly disperse in a practiced manner. A large, motorized trike with booze attached to a trailer and a gnarly sound system was expertly packed and ready to leave in less than two minutes. Toadies, it seemed, was closed for the rest of the evening.

Unfortunately for Carvalho, HeyHey were nowhere to be found.

Neither was his shirt, for that matter.

“Fuck my life . . .”

#

HeyHey staggered down the center of the brightly lit street. Bars lined either side with plenty of patrons spilling out into the road, all of them having a great time judging by the drunken shouts and laughter.

Hayashi and Hekekia were not having a great time.

“I can’t believe we lost him,” Hayashi said mournfully and hiccupped. Hekekia grabbed her arm and hauled her upright when she listed a little too far to the left. She hiccupped again and slung her arm around her bestie’s waist and held up her other hand with her thumb and pointer finger almost touching. “We were this close to finally catching a Crow, and we lost him!”

“Yeah, I know.” Hekekia wrinkled her nose. “To be fair, we may have judged Asshole McDreamy a little too harshly. Or he matured a bit since gunner school. He took a hit for you. I’m pretty sure he could’ve made it out of that brawl if he hadn’t.”

“Both things can be true—” Hayashi tripped over an empty beer bottle and nearly dragged Hekekia down with her. “Whoops! Anyways, we had McDreamy right where we wanted him, and now he’s gone, and Carvalho’s gonna be big mad at us when he catches up and . . . and . . .” She paused, frowned, and tilted her head. “What was I talking about?”

“One, don’t say his name or he’ll definitely find us! And two . . .” Hekekia pointed at a tropical-themed bar promising the “Biggest Mudslides in Yortugan Bay” and grinned. “If he’s gonna be big mad at us, we might as well end on a high note!”

“Girl, yes!” Hayashi danced in place, nearly taking them both out again when she bounced off an equally inebriated local. “Dessert and alcohol all in one glass. I’m so in!”

Together, they tripped into the bar, pounced on a table as a trio of local girls were abandoning it, and giggled their way through two of the biggest mudslides they’d ever seen in their short lives.

“I think I’m going into a drunken sugar coma,” Hayashi slurred as she slurped up the last of the alcoholic ice cream and chocolate.

“I think this is the best consolation prize ever. You think we need one more?” When Hayashi didn’t answer, too busy chasing the last dregs of her drink, Hekekia nodded solemnly. “You think we need one more. I’m on it, bestie!”

Hekekia signaled their exasperated waiter for another round, nearly smacking him in the face with her exuberant waving. With a long-suffering sigh and a muttered plea for a good tip, he deposited a second round of enormous mudslides on their table and stalked away. Hayashi stared after him, nearly falling off her chair as she twisted around to keep staring at him. To be fair, he was worth staring at. The young man wore nothing more than surfer shorts and his own gloriously tanned skin—the bar’s official dress code for the all-male staff members. He was almost as hot as McDowell.

Hekekia hauled Hayashi upright before she could hit the floor. “Plan now, stare later!”

“Plan?” Hayashi shook her head sharply before taking an eager sip of her new drink. “Plan what?”

Hekekia waved her arms again. “We need to plan—hiccup—on how to get McAsshole . . . Dreamy . . . Fuckface Andrew! We’ll catch a Crow yet—hiccup—just you wait.”

“I think you ladies have had enough fun for one night.”

A heavy hand landed on each of their shoulders, and they turned bleary eyes up to their assailant.

“Oh,” Hayashi said faintly.

“Well . . . fuck,” Hekekia muttered. She raised her glass with a hopeful grin. “Care for a drink?”

#

Carvalho was almost at wit’s end. He’d searched everywhere he thought the duo might turn up at—places that were loud, boisterous, and still had free-flowing taps despite the hour.

Duffy’s? No sign of either.

The Red Dog Ale Yard? Nobody had seen them.

Liquor Up Quicker? He’d been almost certain they would have ended up there at some point in the evening because of the name alone, but he’d been wrong.

He checked his comms to see if perhaps someone had actually caught a Crow—two of them, in fact—but he had no outstanding messages. His eyes did catch that it was close to 0330, which was later than he’d expected it to be. The last shuttle back up to the Perseverance was at 0430, and he definitely did not want to ride that. The last shuttle was usually reserved for the drunkest of sailors and legionnaires, and had the distinction of being called the Vomit Comet for a very specific reason.

As he continued to walk through the smaller streets of Yortugan Bay at a loss where to search next for his door gunners, a sign caught his eye which brought him up short.

BIGGEST MUDSLIDES IN YORTUGAN BAY, it proclaimed.

“No . . .” he let the last syllable draw itself out as horrific suspicion dawned. Surely the two diminutive psychopaths had learned their lesson with mudslides after the incident at West Keys back on Mars Primus.

Right?

Before he could muster the fortitude to venture inside and see if his horrified suspicions were correct, a familiar legionnaire marched out the open double doors. Over each shoulder was an equally familiar, if smaller, member of the dastardly drunken duo.

“Where . . . how . . . what the hell, man?” Carvalho sputtered as he stared at Ord, uncomprehending. The two little troublemaking psychopaths were hiccupping between laughs. Hekekia was draped over his right shoulder, while Hayashi was on Ord’s left.

“You owe me,” Ord said as he shifted slightly, which elicited a loud belch from Hayashi. Hekekia laughed harder, and promptly threw up. Groaning, she tried to roll over but Ord kept her firmly in place over his right shoulder with his grip.

“Girl, gross,” Hayashi muttered. “That sounded chunky.”

“I think that was the blue drink,” Hekekia replied. The tiny gunners fist-bumped and started giggling anew, showing off impressive hand-eye coordination for as drunk as they were, as well as being upside down. “Or the red one? Maybe the swirly pink? Definitely nooot the mudslides. Noper McNoperson!”

“Almost caught ’im.” A dreamy smile spread across Hayashi’s face. “Almost caught our first Crow.”

“Almost . . .” Hekekia trailed off with a pouty scowl. “Aw, hell. Carvalho’s here.”

“You’re damn right I’m here.”

“I think he’s mad at us.”

“Mad at you, maybe. At least I didn’t puke on Ordo—” The retching this time was worse than previous. “. . . urk. That tasted better the first time. Oops. I think that got on his pants.”

“You puked on Ordo’s pants? Oh fuuuuuuu—” Another vomiting sound erupted.

“You owe me.”

“Fuck my life . . .”

#

With Ord’s assistance, Carvalho managed to get HeyHey onto the shuttle back up to the PNV Perseverance without too much trouble. The sergeant remained on the planet to ensure all his legionnaires made it to muster on time, which gave Carvalho the entire ride up to their ship to chastise HeyHey.

Not that it did any good. Without stims to bring them out of their drunken stupor, everything he said to them bounced off like rubber, every part of his lecture about responsibility was summarily ignored. Fortunately, they’d puked almost everything in their stomachs out on-planet, so they didn’t get sick during the docking procedures. In the end, he admitted defeat and quit trying to teach them a valuable life lesson, deciding instead to simply help get them to their quarters. There, a bemused Bronze Raven 5 gunner took custody of them, though she didn’t hesitate to give him an openly appreciative look.

Carvalho gave Corporal Collier credit for keeping her mouth shut.

Mostly.

“Daaaaamn, Sarge . . . nice,” and a very feminine cackle followed him down the hall as he headed to his berthing space as fast as dignity would allow.

Fuck my life . . .

He most assuredly did not blush at the comment, despite the reddening of skin. This was due to the cold in the corridors of the Navy vessel, nothing more. There was no one else to try to prove him otherwise, either.

The familiar halls of the Perseverance were mostly empty. As usual, the majority of the legionnaires who’d taken liberty down to the planet were waiting until the very last minute for their ride back up—excluding those who were already down for their training workups. Thus, there was nobody around to comment on his lack of shirt, wonder why his boots were making a squishing sound with every step, or ask why he smelled so horrible.

Just another night on the town for a Crow cursed with tiny miscreants for gunners.

Once back to his berthing space, he stripped out of his still-damp pants and tossed them into a sealed bag. Eventually he’d take them down to be laundered and cleaned, but he’d worry about that after a hot shower. He glanced at his immaculately made bed longingly before sternly reminding himself that he desperately needed to get clean, and trudged across the hall to the men’s shower.

Thanks to the recyclers, water wasn’t a huge deal, so he took his time luxuriating in the steaming hot water. Once he was done, he quickly toweled off and grabbed a pair of clean coveralls. There was still time for him to get some decent sleep before muster and late chow, and he could save some time by sleeping fully dressed and ready for the coming day.

The corridor was still quiet, the hour late. Yawning, Carvalho toweled his hair dry and entered his berthing space once more. Tossing the towel into the sealed bag to join his nearly ruined pants, he stopped and stared as a strange sight greeted him.

On his immaculately made bed was a single, unadorned container roughly the size of a shoebox. It had definitely not been there when he’d first arrived in his space. He would have seen it. Because unlike almost all of Bravo Company, he hadn’t been drinking tonight. Rubbing his eyes, he picked it up. It had some weight to it. He sniffed. It smelled . . . vaguely good, and familiar. It was also warm.

Cautiously, he opened the box. A tantalizing aroma slapped him in the face. Peering down, he gasped.

Inside was a perfectly grilled, gorgeously marbled Grade 1A ribeye steak from Gunrunner’s, complete with a side of baby carrots and asparagus. There was also a fork and steak knife inside. Blinking his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating, Carvalho reached inside and touched the steak. It was still hot, as were the carrots and asparagus.

He glanced at his door. It was locked and biocoded for him and him alone. Only a senior NCO or officer could access his quarters without permission . . . and he was absolutely certain that he had rank on the one person who was the primary suspect for the unexpected gift. There was no way the legionnaire could have gotten into his berthing space without him knowing, or approving.

But the steak suggested that Bronze Legion Sergeant Emmett “Ordo” Ord had indeed found a way . . .

“How the fuck did he pull that off?” Carvalho wondered as he eyeballed the gorgeous slab of perfectly cooked meat. He glanced at his comms and saw that he still had four hours to eat and catch a quick nap before muster. The ride up in the shuttle had been faster than expected. Conversely, he could sleep now and eat the steak later. That would give him almost four and a half hours of sleep.

The decision was an easy one for him to make.

Lose thirty minutes of sleep? Worth it, he decided as he shoveled the first slice of still-hot steak into his mouth.

END

Jason Cordova is both a John W. Campbell Award and Dragon Award finalist. He edited his first anthology, Chicks in Tank Tops, coauthored Monster Hunter Memoirs: Fever with Larry Correia, and wrote Mountain of Fire in the Black Tide Rising universe, all with Baen Books. He has 28 novels currently in print and has been featured in numerous anthologies. A Navy veteran, he is also a former middle school teacher. Though Californian by birth, he has since relocated to the South, where he swears at the humidity on a thrice-daily basis. He can be found at www.jasoncordova.com.

Melissa Olthoff is a science fiction and fantasy author who delights in sneaking in romance wherever she can. She is a lifelong geek and a veteran of the United States Air Force, both of which are incredibly useful when writing. Her degrees in meteorology and accounting are slightly less applicable to writing but absolutely useful when it comes to supporting her family. In 2023, she took second place in the annual Baen Fantasy Adventure Award Contest with her story “Fall from Grace” and won the Imadjinn Award Best Short Story in 2023 and 2024. She is published by Baen, Chris Kennedy Publishing, Hit World Press, and Three Ravens Publishing, and is best known for her novel of the Griffin Corps, Rise from Ruin, and novels in the Four Horsemen Universe, the Blood & Armor Series, the Salvage Title Universe, and Hit World Valkyries, as well as numerous short stories.

The World of Ringer: Living in Saturn’s Rings

by Andy Presby

A very wise woman once told me that it is easy to edit away an author’s heartfelt motivation for writing her story. The part of it she may not be able to put into words, which is the whole reason she’s writing the 100,000 word novel in the first place. She was so smart I married her and a benefit of that is that I occasionally get to help provide ideas for her stories.

I don’t aim here to try to tease out all the things Joelle was trying to say in Ringer. My goal as a guy whose primary creative activity is worldbuilding is to explain some of the reasons this setting speaks to us and some of the Real World ™ science and engineering that defines the spinning tuna can shaped world the characters inhabit. That world is a space station named Chawla and we’ll talk a little bit below about how and why it might all work once we get around to building something like it.

The germ of the Ringer of course began with Joelle’s previous book, The Dabare Snake Launcher. That book takes place several generations before the events of Ringer and tells a piece of the story of how humanity started moving out into the Solar System in a big way in the early part of the next century or so. Dabare established that an international cast of characters had invented the technology needed to build a space elevator on Earth and actually pulled together the money, the team, and necessary permits to make the whole thing happen. The story focused on the small part of that team that had the thankless job of clearing Earth orbit of over a century of hypervelocity debris that would have been a threat to the elevator. See Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy for an object lesson in why you don’t want your space elevator to get cut. This story established some of the technical backstory that we’re taking forward into Ringer. Humanity has a much larger number of space stations and lunar outposts than we do today. Life support systems are more reliable and better at recycling air, water, and other materials needed to keep crews alive. Big commercial launch vehicles a la SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn are an old reliable mainstream technology all over the world at this point. We have perfected magnetic rail levitation and can build rockets that can scoop some of their fuel from the atmosphere as they go. This combination permits the construction of rail assisted launch vehicles making modest small single stage to orbit uncrewed cargo spacecraft possible. All these propulsion systems, amazing as they are, are dwarfed by the space elevator’s potential to lift big masses to orbit more cheaply than a rocket can. The main inventions that make this possible are all in materials science and we grouped them all under the name “Diamond Wire” in Dabare. They imply a set of carbon-based nano materials able to be made at enormous industrial scales to permit things like huge cables going straight from the ground all the way to geostationary orbit.

All of these technologies (and many more that have to go unmentioned to keep a story readable) would give us incredible capability way beyond what we have today. They would allow humanity to move out into the Solar System in a much bigger way than we currently do. Ringer comes in several generations down the line and looks at where people went and how they might live once they got there.

Why Would Anyone Want To Live in The Rings of Saturn?

I fell in love with Saturn’s Rings looking at the pictures that came back from NASA’s Cassini mission to that planet. I mean come on . . . what’s not to love?

Figure 1: Saturn’s Rings Taken by Cassini. The Sun is behind the planet and Cassini was in its shadow. Original photo and more information here: Catalog Page for PIA08329

There are lots of features of the Saturn system that make it a wonderful setting location for fiction. I won’t give them all away in hopes that we’ll get to write more of them up in future installments of the series, but I’ll just tease two. First, the Rings are of such a scale that you can traverse them with Apollo-era chemical rocket technology in days or weeks . . . they’re big . . . but not too big. Second, you remember all those Hollywood asteroid belts with ships swooping in and out around house sized boulders?

Yeah.

Those pretty much don’t exist anywhere in the real world.

But ring systems like Saturn’s are pretty close.

No spacecraft has ever actually slowed down and gone into orbit in the Rings but between a variety of astronomical observations, images from space probes, and computer simulations we can get things like the artist’s concept below.

Figure 2: Artist’s impression of what it would be like in the Rings. Image by Marty Peterson, based on a 1984 image by William K. Hartmann. Hartmann’s image illustrated early research by Stuart Weidenschilling and co-workers at the Planetary Science Institute, on dynamical ephemeral bodies in Saturn’s rings.

As soon as I learned this (and I’m not even breaking out the best stuff) I was hooked and started thinking of reasons to set up stories in the Rings. I pretty quickly decided that there were so many interesting features that having people actually living there could serve as a backdrop for many stories. So I started looking for reasons one might want to live there.

Looking around for places to live you might conclude with NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, pretty much every other space agency and Jeff Bezos that Earth is by far the best planet.

You’d be right.

But what if you wanted to get out of near-Earth space because you thought the neighborhood was really going downhill? Maybe you were feeling a little iffy on the neighbors. Maybe the economy was poor. Maybe you just wanted to see new things. Maybe you just wanted to be left alone for a while.

Looking for a place to live beyond Earth means looking for a good supply of water and other resources needed for life in a place where the natural space environment won’t make life prohibitively expensive.

It turns out that the Rings of Saturn fit that bill pretty well.

Figure 3: Inner Saturn System map courtesy NASA

NASA probes and telescopic observations indicate that the Rings consist of billions upon billions of chunks of almost pure water ice. These are thought to range in size from icy dust to the size of a small house. Larger icy moons some dozens of kilometers wide open gaps in the Rings. There’s also evidence of hundreds or thousands of bodies the size of small mountains which aren’t quite big enough to open their own gaps. Water can be turned into oxygen and hydrogen useful for life support, rocket fuel, and numerous industrial processes. There’s not much nitrogen in the Rings to help make fertilizers and provide a more natural breathing mix but another moon, Titan, is not too far away and its atmosphere is rich in nitrogen. Well. Okay. Titan’s not too far away if you have the engines it’ll take to get you to Saturn but we can talk about that later. The ice that makes up the Rings appears to have trace amounts of a set of reddish organic compounds called “tholins” mixed in with it. These would be a source of precious carbon needed for life . . . though less than one percent of the mass of the Rings is likely made up of these materials [1]. You’ll likely need to import metals and other heavier elements from elsewhere even with great recycling . . . but otherwise the inner part of the Saturn system seems a pretty conducive place for humans to live if you can get there.

The space environment contains a great deal of naturally occurring radiation. An unshielded human will get a lethal dose from energetic particles from the Sun and galactic cosmic rays from outside our Solar System pretty quickly. Real World ™ radiation shielding to cope with this problem is heavy and hard to bring with you. Planets with a magnetic field in our Solar System also all have natural radiation belts that can actually make the problem worse. The stronger the magnetic field of the planet and the faster it’s rotating, the more intense the radiation in the belts. Earth’s radiation belts are bad enough. Jupiter’s are borderline apocalyptic. Saturn’s are in between. They’re worse than Earth’s but not quite as bad as Jupiter’s. Yet those same planetary magnetic fields can help by protecting you from some of the solar and galactic radiation once you are nestled down deep inside them. The stronger the planetary magnetic field the better it will shield you once you get below any naturally occurring radiation belts.

The ideal thing would be to find a place which had a nice strong magnetic field but where you were protected from the natural radiation belts that such a magnetic field inevitably creates.

And here’s the beauty of Saturn: its magnetic field is stronger than Earth’s and its radiation belts are worse . . . but they effectively end at the outer edge of the Rings. This is because all the ice there stops the belts from moving down into their orbit. That means that, if you can survive the trip to get there, you have a nice place deep inside a large magnetic field protected from radiation in which to live and raise your kids. And any unwanted visitors have to contend with a long trip to get to you and still have to pass through the radiation belts to get at you. This should promote both life and liberty.

Sure, the first ship you sent would have to have thick and heavy radiation shielding that you wouldn’t actually need once you got down into the Rings. But you could use metals and other heavy elements that were scarce at Saturn for that shielding if you had a powerful enough propulsion system to carry all this stuff in the first place. You could then dismantle much of your shielding once you arrived and recycle it into other stuff you needed.

Turns out there’s even a providential gap in Saturn’s outer A-Ring (see “Encke division (Pan)” on Figure 3 above) held open by the relatively small icy moon, Pan, where you could settle in. A photo of Pan with the gap edges seen from “above” is below in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Pan in the Encke Gap. Photo courtesy NASA. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia08317-brilliant-pan/

Pan is about 26 km (16 miles) across. The Gap is about 325 km (200 miles) wide. The white material on either side are the Rings themselves . . . made up of billions and billions of chunks of water ice. Turns out living in a big space station parked in the Gap several hundred miles from Pan would have certain advantages. The biggest of which is that Pan’s gravity keeps the Gap free of the tumbling Ring ice boulders that could otherwise damage your spacecraft.

At this point the Rings are looking pretty good. The water ice provides a stable basis for a life support loop. Titan is nearby with nitrogen for fertilizers and makeup atmosphere. You can probably get organics at least in trace quantities from the Rings themselves. You might have to import metals or be lucky to discover one of Saturn’s 274 presently known moons has some.

Mining the Sky . . . Farming it . . . Breathing it . . . Swimming in it . . . and Recycling It . . .

This is all good stuff . . . but it’s like having all the ingredients to make a meal without a kitchen or a recipe. Settling in the Rings would require that you know how to set up a sustainable closed loop ecology that can use all these materials very carefully with as little waste as possible. “Closed loop” in this context means recycling water, organics, and all waste products to the maximum possible extent as shown below in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Example loop-closing flow sheet for generalized closed life-support system after Ref [2] which copied it from Ref [3]. Some of these loops would be closed on a spacecraft by animals and plants and others by machines.

The “loops” of material and energy flows are “closed” because waste or byproducts of the various organisms that live in the system are converted back into resources those organisms can use over and over again with very little loss. The biosphere of the Earth of course does all this quite naturally. All the life that we share our planet with participates in the process in many ways and to varying extents. People have been studying how to better cultivate our garden home for a very long time. This might be understood as the beginnings of the study of the web of relationships between organisms and their environment that we call “ecology” today.

The Earth however has the advantage of enormous mass and volume plus significant quantities of time in which to perform all of this recycling. The specific problem of trying to do what Earth does naturally in miniature aboard a spacecraft has been studied since the dawn of the Space Age. We have made machines that can do in a very small space a few of the things that Earth does via organisms and environment. The first spacecraft couldn’t recycle anything though. The astronauts carried all their oxygen, water, and other necessities plus equipment to keep the atmosphere in their spacecraft comfortable. These early environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS) are simple and reliable but don’t work for very long missions because you have to carry too much stuff with you. So we started closing loops. You might hear this called “regenerative” life support systems. That means that the system can recycle some or all of its resources. The International Space Station (ISS), for instance, has the most advanced environmental control and life support system built to date. Its water recovery system has recently demonstrated recovery of 98% of the water in the U.S. segment of the Station on orbit. That means that, if you bring 100 pounds of water aboard, the system is able to keep 98 pounds of it in continuous circulation. So we are well and truly on our way to closing the water loop though this comes with lots of jokes about turning yesterday’s coffee into today’s coffee on the ISS. This is funny . . . but it isn’t like it’s any different than the history of the water we drink every day on Earth. It’s just Earth has more steps in the process and takes more time to recycle the water.

One of the things that I am excited about in Ringer is showing how humans aren’t the only Earth life we’re likely to bring with us to space. Note the animals and plants in Figure 5. The best way we know to live comfortably in space, as on Earth, will involve bringing other Earth life with us. Plants remove carbon dioxide, help oxygenate the air, and can make good use of many of the waste products of their more mobile human and animal shipmates. NASA and other space agencies have been studying natural ecologies and tried to replicate some of what we’ve learned in simplified childlike miniatures on the Space Shuttle, ISS, and other places. Figure 6 below is a nice photo taken aboard the ISS showing a zinnia that an astronaut posed for the camera in the station’s Cupola module.

Figure 6: Zinnia shown in the ISS Cupola. Photo courtesy NASA Johnson Space Center’s Flickr account. The plant was grown in a grey rooting “pillow” containing nutrient rich growth media. https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/24460739396/

Russian, American, and Chinese researchers (among others) have experimented with building small enclosed ecologies on Earth. The Russian BIOS series of experiments, the American Biosphere 2, and the Chinese Lunar Palace have all led to dramatic crop yields, lessons for sustainable terrestrial agriculture, and made important progress on the road to a closed ecological life support system. For instance the Chinese Lunar Palace 365 experiment reported in 2018 the successful complete recycling of oxygen, water, and vegetarian food for a crew of four people in a 500 square meter ground based lab at Beihang University in Beijing for over a year. No currently orbiting spacecraft has enough room to try this but the International Space Station has already tested out some pieces of it with two different plant growth chambers studying the effects of microgravity on farming in space and also providing the crew with some fresh produce occasionally. For the curious; to the best of my knowledge, the first vegetable grown, harvested, and eaten is space was “"Outredgeous”" red romaine lettuce.

These efforts are just the beginning of learning to live in space and have all occurred within only a few hundred miles of the surface of our home world. Everyone acknowledges that we’ve got a lot to learn before we’re ready to bring our own little pieces of home to space with us. I would be lying if I said that we were close to being able to do this on the scale that we show in the book. It will take many decades of consistent investment in technology experiments for us to learn how to replicate in space the functions that our home planet performs for us entirely naturally. Advances will need to be made in enclosed farming, ecology, recycling even residual waste, and much more. Part of what the many commercial space stations mentioned in Dabare were doing was making those advances for use both on Earth and in making missions farther from Earth possible for anyone other than a robot.

We’ll need to learn to be even more efficient with recycling as we go farther out but our experiments have already taught us quite a bit about recycling our water and growing plants in the space environment, which are big steps. One rather unsurprising thing has become clear though: Earth life really doesn’t enjoy microgravity or radiation. All this gardening sure would be easier if we could have as close to an Earthlike environment as possible.

So, let’s do something about that shall we?

Go Big . . . Or Don’t Go

Radiation and microgravity are central problems Earth life has faced to date on space missions. There are many potential solutions to these problems like genetic engineering, cocktails of designer drugs, and sleeping in small centrifuges (I’m not kidding). You’ve probably seen all of these (except maybe that last one) in a variety of science fiction books or shows. One or more of these solutions might also appear in future novels in this series but for Ringer we wanted to show Mark One Mod Zero bog-standard boring old humans (and baobab trees and cats and chameleons . . . ) thriving in space.

It turns out that one really obvious solution to the problem of living in the microgravity of space is to spin the part of the spacecraft where they live to simulate gravity. Most people can tolerate this indefinitely if the whole thing is big enough and rotates no more than a couple of rotations per minute [Ref 4. pg. 48]. Doing the math on this means a big rotating torus, sphere, or cylinder. For the record this will require a very large spacecraft by today’s standards. Say, if you want to give your crew one gravity at one rotation per minute that would give you a bird almost 900 meters (3000 feet) across. The biggest spacecraft ever built, the ISS, is 109 meters (358 feet) long at its widest point and it’s not strong enough to spin at that speed. We’re nowhere near being able to build what I’m talking about here. But it turns out that if you could build a spacecraft that big then carrying the extra shielding that you need to reduce local radiation levels inside the spinning habitat to tolerable levels for Earth life is . . . well . . . not easy exactly. But not the hardest thing on your to-do list if you’re going to build a thing that big anyway.

I call this design approach “Go Big Or Don’t Go” and it’s the one sure-fire way that I know to make an environment that terrestrial life could survive in anywhere you could put such a spacecraft.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky first wrote about the idea of spinning a vehicle to create artificial gravity in a manuscript entitled “Free Space” as early as 1883 [Ref 4. pg. 60]. However, it took almost a century, a Stanford professor named Gerard K. O’Neill, and a team of professionals and students during a 1975 summer study to put some engineering rigor into imagining it at the scale I’m talking about for Ringer. That study [Ref. 5] and Dr. O’Neill’s later 1976 book, The High Frontier, brought the idea of free-flying space settlements to a popular consciousness troubled by energy shortages, pollution issues, and other concerns about the future. It was popularized on screen in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Gundam, and Babylon 5 among many other places. This is why they’re called “O’Neill Cylinders” in Figure 7 below.

Figure 7: Artist’s painting of “Island Three” type O’Neill cylinders from pg. 144 of Ref. 5. Twin paired 32 kilometer (20 mile) long cylinders. Note they’re paired and rotating in opposite directions to make them easier to control.

The insides of the original O’Neill cylinders were fascinating places to imagine. Each used three large mirrors to reflect sunlight into giant windows made of lunar glass. Thus natural light could be used to grow plants (See Figure 8 below).

Figure 8: Artist’s impression of what the inside of such a cylinder might look like courtesy NASA and Don Davis.

This was all amazing theoretical engineering work backed with realistic calculations and the sheer scale of it captured an enduring chunk of the popular imagination. However, building a twenty-mile-long space habitat wasn’t a particularly practical place to start. Ref [5] lays out a whole national strategy and even an economic justification for doing it. Nothing in it seems to violate the laws of physics and elements of that strategy, like all that closed loop life support stuff above, have actually been worked on consistently by NASA (among others) ever since. The vision of The High Frontier required lunar bases, extensive cis-lunar transportation infrastructure, use of lunar resources, the ability to manufacture large space structures, and an economic demand for space based solar power satellites beaming a significant fraction of Earth’s energy down to the surface. There’s no reason in principle you couldn’t do it but no one was sure how you’d ever pay for it.

People soon started looking for smaller ways to start. That meant looking for smaller space station designs to start with. Enter Kalpana One (See Figure 9).

Figure 9: Kalpana One exterior panorama courtesy of Bryan Versteeg at https://spacehabs.com/. Used with permission.

Named in honor Dr. Kalpana Chawla (one of the astronauts lost in the destruction of Space Shuttle Columbia), its size, shape, and other parameters are described in Ref [6]. It’s a shortened single cylinder that is very much smaller than the O’Neill Island Three designs above. Kalpana One’s habitat was designed for 3,000 people, rotated twice a minute, and was 500 meters (1640 feet) across. It took in sunlight in complex arrays at its endcaps and was powered by both solar panels and power beamed to it by another nearby solar power satellite. Everyone had a quite a bit of living space (170 m^2 per person or 1830 square feet). The station was not designed to be the ideal space city of the future but rather the first space village. The interior visualizations are pretty wild (again thanks to Bryan Versteeg).

Figure 10: Kalpana One artist’s rendering looking along the direction of spin. Courtesy of Bryan Versteeg at https://spacehabs.com/. Used with permission.

Figure 11: Kalpana One artist’s rendering looking along the axis of the station. Courtesy of Bryan Versteeg at https://spacehabs.com/. Used with permission.

Note that the images above don’t show any farm space. That’s because it’s under the floor or in the central core in space-going equivalents of modern vertical farming intensive cultivation techniques.

Figure 12: Combined aquaculture and hydroponics farm. Controlled lighting and crop cycles tailored to the plants’ specific needs can make for ridiculously high crop yields. Courtesy of Bryan Versteeg at https://spacehabs.com/. Used with permission.

This type of farming has been the focus of serious research for a while and there are several businesses built around the technique. This is by no means a common way to grow food and it is still in its infancy but there’s plenty of evidence that people can grow food like this. They can in fact grow quite a lot of it. A way to combine these techniques might be cascading vertical farming levels buried in the floors of the station’s hull and surrounded by fish ponds whose wastes (carefully filtered) flow down through rice paddies to help irrigate the growing levels below them as shown below in Figure 13.

Figure 13: Collage of “cascading farms” imagery from Ref 6. Left (Ref 5. Ch 3 frontispiece) shows a painting of how vertical farming might look in a torus-shaped colony. Right-upper (Ref. 5 Fig 5-11) -another view. Right-lower (Ref.6 Fig. 5-12) cutaway view.

I don’t think the cows in the above picture will stay lined up neatly in rows for very long and I’d like any farm animals on the station to have a bit more humane environment but otherwise this (combined with sub-floor agricultural sections illustrated in Fig. 12) looks like it could provide lots of food for lots of people in a relatively efficient and ethical manner.

It will however take energy. Quite a lot of energy. This means Chawla’s power plant is perhaps the key technology that makes the whole setting work.

Some straightforward calculations show that just growing the food for the three thousand people on a space station like the one we depict in the story would take from three to forty megawatts of electrical energy. Space settlements built near Earth enjoy the benefits of abundant solar power but the amount of energy a solar panel can make falls off very quickly as one goes farther out. Assuming the maximum theoretical efficiency from a recent NASA study (Ref [7]) a forty- megawatt solar array in Earth orbit would be a square about 206 meters (676 feet) on a side. At Saturn’s distance from the Sun you’d need a solar array over two kilometers (about 1.3 miles) on a side to get the same forty megawatts. We might be able to power small probes with sunlight out at Saturn but the civilization we are talking about in this novel will take a lot more power.

The figures above are just for growing food. We would have to add in all of the power you would need for air handling, water management, atmosphere processing, keeping millions of tons of habitat spinning, and making sure the whole mess stayed in orbit. By the time we’re done with adding all that up Chawla could easily end up using gigawatts of electrical power. Some kind of nuclear power is a good answer for making lots of power in a small package where it’s dark or dim and it has been used in space since nearly the beginning of the Space Age. Russia, the United States, and China have already flown power sources that make a few hundred watts from the heat of a decaying radioactive material (usually plutonium). Russia and the United States both flew small uranium fueled nuclear fission reactors decades ago in principle like the nuclear reactors in use for naval vessels and commercial power around the globe today. The last decade has seen a resurgence in interest in space nuclear fission technology and indeed that’s the area where most of my actual day job work is done. For an introduction to space fission power see Ref [8]. But even uranium fission reactors cannot provide as much power as Chawla’s likely to need.

Don’t worry though. We won’t need a long extension cord. We’ll just have to bring a little star of our own along for the ride.

Nuclear fusion looks to provide a solution. A small team of researchers did a five year technical study on how to get a robotic space probe to another star system around the same time that Gerard O’Neil was pondering building massive space colonies to solve terrestrial problems. It was called Project Daedalus and remains, to my knowledge, the most detailed professional engineering conceptual design of what a real starship might look like to date. What they ended up with was a design for a two stage 100,000+ ton nuclear fusion pulse rocket that got a 500-ton robotic probe to Barnard’s Star in less than a human lifetime as described in Ref [9]. Most of the mass was fuel. It was . . . not small:

Figure 14: Daedalus probe next to the Empire State Building for scale. Courtesy Adrian Mann at http://www.bisbos.com/space_n_daedalus_gallery.html. Used with permission.

That giant bell at the bottom is a 100 meter (328 feet) wide fusion rocket engine. The coil at the very bottom “borrows” some of the fusion plasma’s energy and turns it into electrical power to keep it running. Lots and lots of electrical power at millions of volts. A better view of that engine without all of the spherical fuel tanks appears in Figure 15 below.

Figure 15: Daedalus first stage with the fuel tanks removed making the fusion rocket "bell" clearer. Courtesy Adrian Mann at http://www.bisbos.com/space_n_daedalus_gallery.html. Used with permission.

You can see the many cylindrical fusion initiators at the bottom which were supposed to project beams of electrons against little pellets of fusion fuel 250 times a second to detonate them. A giant molybdenum end bell that works with magnetic field coils to direct the fusion plasma away from the spacecraft is inside the triangular grid truss work. The circular disk at the top helps shield the rest of the spacecraft from the heat radiating off the bell at 1600 K (2912 F). A great deal of “plumbing” does not appear on this diagram and would have to be worked out in a real spacecraft but the nearly 200 page final report is very thorough.

The conceptual work on Daedalus was finished in 1978. The authors clearly stated that much of their work was highly speculative and it remains so today. The key point for our purposes is that we still do not have fusion reactors that can make reliable electrical energy today . . . let alone fusion pulse rockets big enough to play a really weird game of football in. There are many, many issues with making this probe a reality. Potentially the biggest one is how to detonate tiny pellets of liquid helium-3 and deuterium. Helium-3 is rare isotope of helium that makes a great nuclear fusion rocket fuel . . . if we can figure out how to get enough of it and cause it to fusion.

Here’s where our worldbuilding for Ringer gets a little more speculative and we ask “what if we got this working and put one on the back of a Kalapana cylinder?” I love putting meat on the bones of this kind of speculation, grounded in the engineering extrapolations, and backed by decades of serious research. The answer is Chawla Station; which might look something like Figure 16 below:

Figure 16: RSC Chawla with a few other unnamed Baen friends. Tum-te-tum-tum. Image courtesy Tom Pope. Used with permission.

The central cylinder is the 500 m (1640 foot) wide habitat and spins to create artificial gravity on its interior surface. It rests in the middle of two non-rotating pieces. At the back you can see the end bell of a fusion pulse rocket very similar to Daedalus’ . . . but four times larger. That rocket is what got Chawla to Saturn in the first place and can be run in a low power mode where it “only” provides the electrical energy needed to keep the lights on and keep the station in orbit. The array of spheres and struts at the front is a zero-gee docking and industrial zone. The massive disk in the middle is a thermal shield and radiator system that deals with the waste heat from the spacecraft which has no way of escaping except radiating to space. Chawla is enormous and way bigger than anything we could realistically build today. It is not, however, bigger than something we could imagine building with physically realizable materials. We figure a society that could make a space elevator could figure out how to make Chawla.

There are many more details of each of these ideas that underpin why things work in the setting but these will have to be kept for later stories and articles. I hope you’ve enjoyed this peek under the hood at the science and engineering of Ringer. I also hope that the result of our work provides you with a glimpse into a better future we can all help make for our descendants.

References:

[1] Jeffrey N. Cuzzi, Richard G. French, Amanda R. Hendrix, Daniel M. Olson, Ted Roush, Sanaz Vahidinia, HST-STIS spectra and the redness of Saturn’s rings, Icarus, Volume 309, 2018, Pages 363-388, ISSN 0019-1035, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2018.02.025

[2] Billingham, J., Gilbreath, W., & O’Leary, B. (Eds.). (1979). Space resources and space settlements (NASA SP-428). National Aeronautics and Space Administration. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19790024054/downloads/19790024054.pdf

[3] Spurlock, J. M., Review of Technology Developments Relevant to Closed Ecological Systems for Manned Space Missions. Final Report, NASA Contract No. NASw-2981, CR-153000, SAE, New York, 1977.

[4] Clément, G., & Bukley, A. (2007). Artificial gravity (Space Technology Library, No. 20). Springer. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00177T5TM

[5] Johnson, R. D., & Holbrow, C. (Eds.). (1977). Space Settlements: A Design Study (NASA SP-413; LC-76-600068). NASA Ames Research Center. Space Settlements: A Design Study - NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

[6] Globus, A., Arora, N., Bajoria, A., & Straut, J. (2007). The Kalpana One orbital space settlement: Revised. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. https://space.nss.org/kalpana-one-space-settlement/

[7] Rodgers, E., Gertsen, E., Sotudeh, J., Mullins, C., Hernandez, A., Le, H. N., Smith, P., & Joseph, N. (2024, January 11). Space-based solar power (Report ID 20230018600). Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/otps-sbsp-report-final-tagged-approved-1-8-24-tagged-v2.pdf?emrc=744da1

[8] Presby, A. (2017). Nuclear fission power in space. Baen. https://www.baen.com/nuclearfission

[9] Project Daedalus Study Group. (1978). Project Daedalus: the final report on the BIS starship study. London :Space Educational Aids Ltd. for the British Interplanetary Society Ltd.

For Further Learning:

Spacehabs.com – Visualizing The Future – Bryan Versteeg is responsible for the beautiful images of Kalpana One shown earlier. You can find these and many more on his website.

Bisbos.com: Daedalus – By far the most detailed artistic renderings of the Daedalus probe presently available by the excellent Adiran Mann.

Reference 4 above[4] - This is by far the single best book I’ve found on the problems of microgravity, how to generate “artificial gravity,” the limits of that technology, and some ways around them. A bit dated but still a great resource. Also . . . sleeping on a turntable.

Technical Projects - The British Interplanetary Society – Material on the original Project Daedalus and the several starship technical studies that the British Interplanetary Society has done since can be found here. Sadly the detailed Daedalus studies are hard to come by digitally but can still be found in some university libraries.

“Origins of the West African Launcher from TCG Files” by Andy Presby - Baen Books – An in-universe article about the maglev assisted single stage to orbit cargo launch system that serves as a central plot point in The Dabare Space Launcher.

Andy Presby is a former U.S. Navy nuclear submarine officer and current project manager working space nuclear power and propulsion systems in the aerospace sector. He has degrees in spacecraft systems engineering, astronautics, and physics. This non-fiction article describes the world of Joelle Presby’s Ringer. Joelle is a former U.S. Navy nuclear surface ship engineering officer and former business consultant. Andy and Joelle also have the pleasure of being married to one another. Dinner conversations can get interesting and rapidly confuse their three rather young children.