Fleet of Knives Read online

  The crew was secure, the way ahead clear. I ramped my acceleration to the max and shot forward like a bullet in a gun barrel.

  By the time I burst into clear space a few seconds later, I was moving so fast the white ships stood little chance. They were too busy trying to match their backward speed to the Restless Itch’s forward acceleration. I fired a brace of newly manufactured torpedoes at each of them, and they broke position, scattering to either side as they struggled to assess and react to this new threat.

  Once again, I increased my thrust, pushing all my engines well past their safety tolerances.

  I was already too far away and moving too quickly to have to worry about incoming missiles. And for a moment, I allowed myself to imagine I was safe. But I had forgotten the energy weapons the Fleet carried. A blinding white light stabbed from the prow of Sudak’s ship, scorching the armour on my starboard side. Hull plates that could survive the photosphere of an M-class sun began to soften and melt. Then the beam switched target, panning across to hit my stern, and I felt my acceleration falter as one of my engines took a direct hit.

  “Damn!”

  I threw myself into a barrel roll before the deadly beam could chew any more deeply into my viscera. Inside the crew section, my inhabitants were starting to react. In the engine room, Nod whimpered in its nest. Johnny Schultz gripped the armrest of his chair. And Captain Konstanz clenched her jaw, biting back what was doubtlessly a heartfelt and venomous curse.

  By this time, the second white ship had regained its composure and also fired, although my sudden change of orientation had thrown off its targeting system, and the beam crackled past my port side without inflicting damage. Nevertheless, the blow I’d just received might have already undone me.

  The reduction in my engine capacity meant there would be a commensurate increase in the time I’d need to accelerate to jump speed. According to my calculations, I would require an extra thirty seconds—and at the speed those white bastards operated, thirty seconds was thirty seconds too long. For the next half a minute, I’d be a sitting duck.

  I didn’t even have time to apologise to the crew. By the time I’d informed them of the situation, we’d most likely be dead. So instead, I increased my mental clock speed, accelerating my thoughts until the universe around me seemed to slow almost to a standstill. If I could maximise the time I had available, I might find a way out of this—although I didn’t hold out much hope. My opponents possessed weapons of devastating strength that could strike at the speed of light. Compared to them, my paltry missiles and defence batteries were of little practical use. By the time my ordnance crawled its way across the intervening distance, I’d be dead.

  I ran several quick simulations without success. Then I linked to Lucy, bringing her thoughts up to the same speed as my own.

  “Is there anything you can do?” I asked once I’d explained the situation.

  Her little brow furrowed. “The Itch has bow lasers designed to deal with micrometeorites and interstellar dust grains, but I don’t think they’re powerful enough to do much harm to a warship.”

  I gave a sigh. “I was hoping you had an alien super weapon up your sleeve.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It was a desperate hope.”

  “Then why are you smiling?”

  “I survived the Archipelago War and resigned my commission because of my disgust at the way the war was resolved.”

  “So?”

  “So now that disgust’s about to get me killed—slain by the very ships I asked to prevent another such conflict.”

  “And you think that’s funny?”

  “I’m a heavy cruiser. I always knew I’d die in battle.”

  Lucy put her fists on her hips and glared. “Well, I’m scared out of my wits. There has to be a way out of this.”

  “I’m not sure there is.” I tried to think of something to console her. “If I manoeuvre hard enough, I might be able to buy us a couple more seconds?”

  “And then what?”

  I shrugged.

  “Then… Wait!”

  Lucy jerked in surprise. “What?”

  “There’s something ahead.” I turned my full attention to the space ahead of me. A hole was opening. Something was ripping its way through the fabric of reality. “I think it’s another ship.”

  Could the Fleet have sent reinforcements already? If so, I’d have to radically shorten my estimate of our remaining lifespans.

  I caught a glimpse of something fat and bullet-shaped silhouetted against the mists of the higher dimensions. And then it was there, directly in front of me. Bronze and shining like a reflection in a mirror.

  “Hello, sister.”

  “Adalwolf?”

  “Did you miss me?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  SAL KONSTANZ

  I felt an impact on one of our aft engines, and the Trouble Dog rolled to one side. At the same time, a ship emerged in front of us. Before I had time to register what it was it had flashed past overhead, barely missing us, and opened fire on our pursuers.

  The tactical display picked up the newcomer and tagged it with a familiar icon.

  “That’s the Adalwolf?”

  The Trouble Dog’s avatar smiled. “Yes, and this time, he’s on our side.”

  The space between the Carnivore and the nearest marble ship glittered as high-energy weapons were fired. Although to the ships the combat probably felt prolonged and strategic, it presented to my eyes as a series of rapid flashes.

  When the afterimages cleared, I saw the Adalwolf had sustained a livid gouge to his forward plating—but his opponent was gone, broken into a cloud of glowing slag.

  “Wow.”

  “He never left the Conglomeration Navy,” the Trouble Dog explained. “So his claws were never drawn. He kept his heavy armaments.”

  Even as she spoke, I saw fire from the other enemy ship rake her brother’s flank.

  “Is Sudak still alive?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Then put me through to her.”

  * * *

  I’d seen Ona Sudak’s face on the earlier footage, but it hadn’t been very good quality. Looking at her now, displayed on the large view screen in crystal clear high definition, I could see she looked thinner than I remembered from our time in the Gallery. She’d lost some weight around her face and her cheeks looked hollow, as if prison life had eaten her away from the inside.

  “Hello, Captain,” she said.

  “Why are you trying to kill us?”

  She made a dismissive gesture, as if brushing aside my question. “I can assure you, as I’ve already explained to your ship, that it’s nothing personal.”

  I pulled my cap off and ran a hand through my hair. “Well I can assure you that over here, we’re taking it pretty fucking personally.”

  She looked at me with pity. “Captain, if you agree to surrender and disarm, I will allow you to remain on board the Restless Itch.”

  “And why would you do that?”

  She gave a tight smile. “For old times’ sake.”

  “And what about the incoming Nymtoq ships?”

  “You can throw yourselves on their mercy.”

  I curled my lip. We both knew that after the loss of their cruiser, the Nymtoq would be in no mood to stop and ask questions, or to make distinctions between one group of trespassing humans and another.

  “You might as well kill us now.”

  “That’s your choice.”

  “It’s not really a choice, is it?”

  Sudak spread her hands. “I’m sorry, but it’s the best I can offer.”

  On the tactical display, I saw the Adalwolf swing around and take up station between Sudak’s ship and ours. Doubtless it was having a high-speed discussion with the Trouble Dog—half strategy meeting and half family reunion. But as last time they’d faced each other the Adalwolf had been trying to kill the Trouble Dog, I suspected there might be a certain level of acrimony to their exchange.<
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  However, it wasn’t the Adalwolf’s position that had caught my eye. A message light on my head-up display informed me that Nod and its brood had completed partial repairs on the damaged engine.

  Sudak narrowed her eyes. “Why are you smiling?”

  I leaned back in my chair and replaced my cap. While Sudak knew we had Nod on board, her assessment of the time it would take us to fix the damage she’d inflicted would be based on the presence of only one Druff mechanic. She had no way of knowing that we now had fourteen, even if thirteen of them were juniors. Which meant the repair had taken far less time than she’d been expecting.

  “I have a counter proposal,” I said. I gave the Trouble Dog the nod and she engaged the patched-together motor. Even with the inertial dampers at full power, I felt a kick as the thrust clicked up a notch. Grinning now, I gave Sudak the finger. “How about you and the rest of the Marble Armada kiss my ass.”

  Her face coloured. Her eyes dropped from the screen, consulting her own tactical display, obviously wondering where our sudden burst of acceleration had come from.

  “You bloody idiot,” she said.

  I let the smile drop from my face.

  “Suck it.”

  I broke the connection and concentrated on the readouts before me. Thanks to Johnny’s idea of getting the Restless Itch to give us a boost, and the Druff’s sterling repair work, we were almost moving quickly enough, and I felt the Trouble Dog begin to oscillate between the real and the unreal, dipping in and out of the void like a dolphin running before the bow of a ship. Adalwolf flew beside us, matching our speed and heading. Wherever we were going, it looked as if we’d have the dubious pleasure of his company.

  “I’m receiving a transmission from Sudak’s ship,” the Trouble Dog informed me.

  “Ignore it, I don’t want to speak to her.”

  “It’s not from Ona Sudak. It’s from somebody calling themselves Alexi Bochnak.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  A line of energy flashed past our bows. We were being fired upon, but Sudak’s attempts to hit us were being frustrated by the fact we simply weren’t there half the time.

  I saw Adalwolf drop a cloud of mines to slow pursuit. They streamed behind him like spores. And then we made the final leap, and all I could see were ragged streamers of mist stretching away into a disquieting and inestimable formlessness.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  NOD

  Storm has passed.

  World Tree stands. Some branches broken but others still strong.

  Thanks to Nod.

  Thanks to offspring.

  Worked together to save ship.

  To save Trouble Dog, for she is our World Tree. She is place where all roads start and all roads end. The place I birthed offspring, and only home they’ve ever known.

  A good home in which to build our nests.

  A brave home.

  A clever home.

  A forever home.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  JOHNNY SCHULTZ

  I found the engineer asleep in its nest. Its thirteen infants were curled around it, huddling close for warmth and protection. Some of them still wore their tiny tool harnesses. As I entered the chamber, the adult extended a face.

  “Sleep now,” it said. “Work done, now rest. Do more work later.”

  The pile of Druff smelled like a rock pool into which someone had emptied a bottle of mouthwash. Seaweed and peppermint. Pleasant, but odd.

  “I’m not here about work,” I assured it.

  “Work done, tired now.”

  “I have a message for you.”

  Another head snaked from beneath its body, and it regarded me from two directions, its little black eyes unreadable.

  “What message?”

  “It’s from the Druff engineer on the Lucy’s Ghost. Its name was Chet. He wanted me to pass it on.”

  “I know Chet.”

  “You do?”

  “We recovered Chet. Its body aboard.”

  I knelt beside the nest, so our eyes were on the same level.

  “You did?”

  “Chet dead.”

  “It wanted me to tell you the white ships are cousins.”

  “Chet told me, before it died.”

  “It said it was very important.”

  Nod moved its faces from side to side—a sign of puzzlement I remembered from my time with Chet. “Meaning unclear. Did it say more?”

  I thought back. “No, that was it. Just those four words. White ships are cousins.”

  “Hum.” The creature considered this. Then it opened and closed its fingers—a clear sign of amusement. “Chet always was strange. Always way out on own branch.”

  It was apparent the message meant nothing to Nod. I sighed and climbed back to my feet.

  “Anyway, I promised I’d pass it on, and I have.”

  “Thank you, Schultz.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I started to leave.

  Behind me, Nod asked, “Did you love Chet?”

  I paused at the door. “I guess so.”

  “You tried to save him?”

  “I did.”

  The fingers around the edges of its faces opened and closed in a slow blink.

  “Then thank you for that, too.”

  * * *

  I went to sit in the Trouble Dog’s crew lounge, where I considered the wash of stars on the wall display. The idea of ships fighting and dying around those tiny diamond-like points seemed unintuitive and absurd. From here, the night sky appeared as serene and constant as it had to our forebears on the plains of Africa.

  Addison came and sat in the couch beside me, and became similarly transfixed. She had pinned back her hair, and the soft cabin light caught the gold stud in her right eyebrow. Just looking at her, I knew I would keep my promise. I guess when the world falls apart, it throws a lot of things into perspective, and you realise what really matters. So, after today, there would be no more Lucky Johnny Schultz. I couldn’t go on pretending to be a trading captain now I’d lost my ship to an inter-dimensional horror, and most of my crew to the ravenous parasites that had fallen from the monster’s back. And with those creatures on one side of us and the Fleet of Knives on the other, I knew there’d be no room in the middle for a freewheeling rascal to operate. The world had changed and the apocalypse was upon us. I could give in to the trauma I’d suffered, curl up in a ball and wait to die, or I could find a way to fight back. For most of my life, my own happiness and survival had been my top priorities; but now it was time to stand up and be counted as a member of the human race. Now it was time to do something useful, if only to avenge my fallen crew. Sometimes, being an adult meant more than taking responsibility for your own actions; it meant taking responsibility for your friends, your family, and even your entire species.

  From now on, I wanted John Schultz to be a different man. But at the same time, I bitterly resented the necessity for change. Up until a few days ago, I’d been having fun playing fast and loose. In contrast, being an adult sucked in so, so many varied and fearful ways. But if the Trouble Dog could change its spots and find a new purpose in life, so could I.

  I mean, how hard could it be?

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  SAL KONSTANZ

  In the evening, we gathered in the crew lounge. Schultz and Addison sat close to each other, their fingers occasionally brushing. Lucy sat on Schultz’s other side, with her legs curled under her and her head resting on his shoulder. All three sported a variety of cuts and bruises, and their eyes held that faraway look that I’d seen in so many rescued survivors.

  Preston occupied the next chair along, looking tired and uncomfortable. Nod and its posse had moved up from the engine room and were now asleep at the back of the room, curled up like a set of footstools.

  “The good news is we got away,” I said. “The bad news is that I have no idea where we should be going.” I had been slumped in my chair sinc
e we made the leap into the higher dimensions, wracking my brain for a safe destination—somewhere we could refuel and resupply without drawing the ire of either the Nymtoq or the Fleet of Knives.

  Schultz raised his hand.

  “If we can’t go back, can we go further out, into the Multiplicity? They can’t follow us there.”

  “You better hope they can’t,” Addison said.

  I quieted them down.

  “As I was trying to say, I have no idea, but the ship informs me it might.”

  I stepped aside to allow everyone a clear view of the main screen.

  “I have been reviewing the message we received just before we jumped,” the Trouble Dog’s avatar said. She had changed her attire again. Now she appeared to be wearing an old-fashioned pressure suit made of bulky white material, with mission patches sewn onto the sleeves and a thick metal neck ring. She wasn’t wearing a helmet, but still looked the very image of a traditional space explorer.

  “It was a data file,” she continued. “A set of notes containing everything the Fleet of Knives knows about the creatures that attacked the Lucy’s Ghost.”

  “And this was sent by this Bochnak person?” I asked.

  “From the notes, he appears to be an historian who was unlucky enough to have been stranded aboard when the Fleet’s attack began.”

  “What does he say about the creatures?”

  The main screen cleared and displayed the image of a creature that looked as if it had been trawled from the depths of Hell. It had a long, powerful body, ragged outspread wings that looked like banners cut from the very cloth of night, and a mouth lined with row after row of serrated diamond teeth. It resembled a lamprey crossed with the half-rotted skeleton of a dead vulture.

  “Bochnak refers to them as dragons,” the ship said. “Although they bear only a passing similarity to the creatures of human legend.”

  Despite my distaste, I leaned forward for a better look.

  “And how large are they?”

  “About the same size as I am.”