NOVEL NEXT Revenge of the Emissaries
There’s a lot of things that I could say about the last leg of the journey to Virdessl’s Star. I could talk about how many hours Stephanie spent alone doing the navigational calculations, or the anxious anticipation that permeated the crew, even though they’d met that same ship less than a year earlier. I could talk about Quinn cracking jokes about finding the Emissary gay coffee shop, or Miri getting really excited about the new culture. But that would be inaccurate, because none of those things were the overriding impression of that stretch of time. No, most of my memories were dominated by my health taking a turn for the worse.
It happened suddenly. I just woke up one morning and I could barely walk far enough to get from one end of my room to the other. My whole body felt heavy and weak, like lead, and my carapace felt very very thin. There was a pressure on the center of my chest as well, forcing me to breathe shallow and slow. Everything hurt, and I spent all of the rest of that day in bed. And all of the next one too. The day after that I was able to get up and walk long enough to get to the common area and sit down there instead.
The sickness came and went after that, bad more days than not and getting worse over time. I was taken care of, even babied, with food and drink brought to my bedside at regular intervals, a little helper drone always available to ferry notebooks and pencils and other things to and from my bedside table with only a minimum of effort on my part. They even had a shower that I could still use, in the ship’s infirmary. I had to be carried there, and shown how to use it by the ship’s doctor. Humiliating doesn’t even begin to describe it.
I felt a bit like the wilting ingenue in a Victorian romance novel, her purity only magnified by her withering away into a pale, fragile ghost. And let me tell you: fuck being that person. I was angry, constantly, toward everyone and everything, even if I didn’t have the strength to show it beyond complaints and snide comments. I rambled abuse at the helper that had been assigned to me, snapped at my parents just for being there, and had to (metaphorically) bite my tongue to stop myself from boiling over at Miri when she came by to sit at my bedside and ramble. She was the only one I could do that for, and after a few days she was the only one who could stand to be around me for longer than it took to help me with whatever task they needed to do. I don’t remember much of what we talked about then; I was distracted, both by the fog of exhaustion over my brain and by staring up at her gorgeously soft face.
I knew why everyone was avoiding me. I wasn’t being a good sick person. Sick people are supposed to be soft and weak and teary-eyed and full of thanks and gratitude, not short-tempered little firecrackers ready to go off at you for the slightest thing because they’re constantly in pain and frustrated by how difficult everything is and trying desperately to find something to blame it on. So they mostly left me alone.
Except for Miri’s occasional visits, I shut myself off from the world. It wasn’t all that different from what I’d been doing for most of my life anyway. Working on my sketching was difficult with how little hand strength I had left, but I did it anyway, as much and as often as I could. Miri even let me sketch her portrait one day. I drew more studies of the Waterspindle, trying to capture the odd internal glow I’d seen when the device activated in pencil and paper. I drew my characters, when I could, or just practiced drawing the same geometric shapes and lighting patterns over and over until my hands were sore. Some of the drawings were angry, violent, dark, shadows scribbled on so hard and deep and dark that they left marks on the other sheets in the book.
Most of the rest of my time I’d just sleep, both because I was tired and because it was better than the alternatives. I had little excitement left for reading or watching things, and my motivation for learning more Emissarine was next to nil, in spite of the circumstances. There were a few times, in the darker moments, where I wished that I could just slip into a coma, to wake up after I’d been cured, just to get it over with.
One of those darker moments also, as it happened, took place in the dark. Though the concept of a day-night cycle was somewhat tenuous in space, the Lance of Croatoan kept one anyway, fourteen hours of light for ten hours of dark, to prevent everyone on board from gradually going insane. I was supposed to be asleep, but my sickness didn’t care for circadian rhythm, so my chest felt like it was on fire. My breathing was haggard with emotion, my hands gripped tightly in my blankets out of sheer despair. I just wanted it fucking over with, I wanted it all over with, whatever that meant. Even though I hadn’t been able to stand for more than a few minutes that whole day, I finally resolved to toss myself out of bed and do something.
And it was just then that soft hum of the hypersail abruptly shut off, marking the transition back to reality. A few seconds after that, the alarms went off and the lights burned my eyes as they flickered to life. It was the same alarm that had sounded when the Architects had surrounded us, so not a good one.
I sat on the edge of my bed and gave it a nice, long think. There was a muffled sound of movement, of people running and shouting, coming from all around. Something was up, and it quickly became obvious that nobody was going to come tell me what that was, which meant that I could either sit here and wait for it all to end, or I could go out there at severe risk to my health and safety to find out what was going on, with the knowledge that I was in absolutely no state to affect any of it.
I took my crutches and shouldered my way out of the door and into the hallway. By that point the chaos had calmed down somewhat, leaving the hallways empty aside for the ongoing rumble of activity. Brushing aside the mental cobwebs long enough to remember the layout of the ship took a few seconds. I eventually staggered off in the direction of the infirmary; they would know something, surely.
I was about halfway there when the ship suddenly lurched, the evasive move throwing me off of the balance of my crutches and into the wall. I crumpled with a moan, my entire body a single complaining nerve. Before I could even curse myself for my stupidity, I’d passed out.
The ship’s engines burned loudly enough to wake me. Something very, very bad was happening. Leaving my room had been a terrible, stupid idea, but I wasn’t going to give up. As soon as I became aware of where the various parts of my body were, I pushed them to their limits. Just grabbing my crutches from where they’d fallen required I twist and stretch so much that I was sure I’d cause plates to slough off of me. But I pulled through, and with all the strength I had left, I was even able to stand, my wings fluttering in a desperate attempt to keep some of the weight off of my aching legs.
I didn’t so much knock on the door of the infirmary as much as I bonked my head against it in the hope that someone would hear; someone did, a green-scaled Unseen who served as the ship’s doctor.
“Is something wrong?” he said. Then, on realizing who I was, his eyes shot open. “You shouldn’t be up and out here like this! What’s happened?”
“That’s what I was wondering,” I said, leaning over onto one crutch. “The alarms are going off and everyone’s running around in total panic and nobody has told me what’s happening.”
The doctor grimaced. “Oh. There was something waiting for us when we entered the system. They aren’t responding to messages and have been trying to get into a boarding position since the moment we left the hyperstream. That’s all I know.”
I sighed. Of course this couldn’t just be easy. Of course it had to be another fight, another obstacle, another risk of death before I could get to my people. I’d almost become hardened to it at that point, or at least covered up my soft and gooey center of constant terror with a shell of cynical survivalism. The weight of the Waterspindle against my chest suddenly became a persistent feeling, a reminder. Even if my body was broken, if I could make the strange little device work again…
“Thanks for the information.”
“You’re very welcome. Do you want help back to your room, or can you handle it on your own?”
“No, I think I’m going to head up,” I said casually. “To the command deck, maybe.”
The doctor frowned. “That’s medically inadvisable. As well as, well, generally inadvisable. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
I gave him my best glare, narrowing all eight eyes.
“Do you want a painkiller?”
“Absolutely.”
I was in the elevator, heading up to the command deck, when the alarm changed subtly. The haze of exhaustion and agony had been replaced with an altogether more pleasant haze of special space-science painkillers, though it had the same effect of making it take a few seconds to remember what the change in alarm tone meant. Oh, right. We’re being boarded.
I pressed the button for the deck with the airlock bay, and the door opened not long after. The blood must have settled in my legs or something, because that first step out of the elevator made me lightheaded. I staggered, nearly fell. Next step wasn’t great either, nor was the one after that. My stomach was suddenly upset and my head and heart were pounding again, even though I shouldn’t have been feeling any pain. After the third step I had to stop and take a breath while the elevator door closed behind me.
Up ahead, there was the low murmur and rattle of people preparing for something. Probably preparing for a fight, part of me thought. The other part of me thought that it probably didn’t matter, and I should have just sat down and taken a nap. I took another step forward, then another. I didn’t want to run away from this fight.
The passage from the elevator to the airlock room was short, deliberately so, but it sure didn’t feel like it, not when every step forward was an exertion of will and the whole world kept trying to turn sideways in my vision. I could barely breathe, gasping for breath. But I made it to the room standing, with my one free arm clasped around the Waterspindle and ready for anything.
I don’t know where they’d been keeping the movable cover, but they sure had brought it out. There was a row of ceramic barriers across the middle of the room, each one about chest height, with gaps just wide enough for someone to squeeze through between each one. Huddled behind the barriers were eight members of the crew. I hadn’t ever really spoken to any of them, but I recognized them as the ship’s marines, the ones whose job it was to fight hand to hand. They were justifying their pay, with shotguns braced against the cover, ready to absolutely destroy whatever came through that door.
“What are you doing here?” said one of them, a Sunder who had to lie on their stomach in order to remain in cover.
“Wanted to help.” I poked at the Waterspindle. “This thing can help. It’s a really good little thing, not sure what it does, but I know it can help.”
“Someone get them out of here before they get hurt,” said one of the marines to nobody in particular.
The two nearest to me moved to do so, but before they could even stand up, a deep rumble echoed down the umbilicus into the airlock. They immediately settled back into a firing position.
“I’d get down if I were you,” said one of the marines near me. Then, to the other marines, “Don’t fire until fired upon, or until I’ve fired. Understood?”
Amidst a chorus of Yes, Sirs, I slumped back against the wall and tightened my grip on the Waterspindle. It felt slightly warmer than usual, and I let it heat up, pouring my anticipation and bloody-minded determination into the metal and letting it sit there, ready to be unleashed.
Within less than a minute, the sound of footsteps was moving down the umbilicus, coming closer. My muscles would have tensed if they’d had the strength left to do so; my heart sped up from the nerves until I could hear blood pounding in my ear-membranes. I saw stars and weird colors, and felt so exhausted that I had to knock my head against the wall behind me to avoid falling asleep there and then. This had been an incredibly stupid idea. I was going to get killed.
The footsteps stopped. Everything stopped. I was about to throw up. The door clanked loudly enough to make the marines jump as it slowly unlocked from the other side. A few of them slowly placed their fingers on the trigger. With a heavy creak and the hiss of pressure equalizing, the door unlocked and began to open.
My fingers were stiff and sore around the Waterspindle, and the energy inside it was almost alive with the desire to escape. As the door swung inwards, a series of black-clad figures filed in, silently fanning out to match the line of marines. They were carrying rifles, each and every one, and quite a few of them had monomolecular blades in their lower arms as well.
Because they had a pair of lower arms. Like me. And even through the body armor, the silhouette was unmistakable, and the way that they glanced at me while keeping their focus on the marines. Not wanting to repeat the mistake I’d nearly made with Larheamra, I staggered forward past the barricades. I dropped the crutches to go faster, a decision which worked for about half a dozen steps. The lightheadedness and profound exhaustion caught up with me all at once, and my legs gave out. With nothing else to lean on, I collapsed directly into the arms of the nearest Emissary.
They caught me, though they had to drop their gun in the process. “No blasting,” I said, which was the best I could manage in my limited Emissarine. “They’re good.”
All of them lowered their guns at once, though a few then re-raised them until the one I’d collapsed onto gave them a nod. After a few more tense seconds, the leader of the marines turned her gun aside and stood. “Fuck!” she exclaimed. “You scared us. What was with the silent act?”
“We have to be cautious.” The one holding me clearly hadn’t had much experience with English.
They were also warm. That was the first time I’d ever actually paid enough attention to notice that Emissaries had body warmth, and to be honest: I was loving it. That and not having to hold up my own weight. In fact, I loved it so much that I closed my eyes and let myself drift off.
