Dark Angels Rising Read online

  They walked back to the ship in awkward silence for the most part, broken sporadically by stilted attempts to start conversation, forced words that withered away in the cool night air.

  Shit! Shit! Shit! What had she been thinking? Jen relived that kiss over and over. She wanted to talk to Robin so badly, to hear his voice just for reassurance, but he was untold light years away – at least so she hoped – doubtless waiting patiently and faithfully for her to come back to him. And how did she repay him? By gallivanting round in fancy restaurants and snogging a man she’d only just met. Shit!

  She went to bed early, in part to avoid Leesa, convinced that she had the word ‘guilty’ writ large across her face. The last thing she wanted was to field questions from a well-meaning but curious friend. Unfortunately, sleep was the furthest thing on her mind. After tossing and turning for what felt like an age but the clock insisted wasn’t, she admitted defeat. What she really wanted was to punch something – herself, preferably – and the best place to do that without risk of starting a fight was the gym.

  She got up, threw on some overalls and stormed along the gantry and down the stairs into the cargo hold. As she strode across the floor, Saavi emerged from the cloud chamber, presumably heading for her own bed.

  “Are you all right, Jen?” she called.

  “I’m fine,” she assured her. “It’s nothing a bout of controlled violence in the gym won’t cure.” Then, as an afterthought: “Oh, by the way, that fish with the horn on its nose you were asking about a while ago. I think I’ve seen it.”

  “Where?” Saavi asked, a little too sharply.

  “On a sign outside a restaurant called the Blue Buccaneer, not far from here. Do you remember that bar we used to go to sometimes, the Wayward Star?”

  “What, the place owned by that old spacer, Benny Carlton?”

  “That’s the one. Benny’s not in charge any more but the bar’s still there, and the Blue Buccaneer is a couple of minutes further on from there.”

  “Thanks, Jen!” Saavi turned back towards the cloud chamber, the door opening to admit her.

  “If you need some muscle for whatever this leads to, you know where to find me,” Jen called after her. “I’m in the mood for punching things.”

  “Will do.”

  A woman on a mission, Jen continued to the gym, determined to put the heaviest duty apparatus Raider could provide through its paces.

  Saavi felt more excited, more confident, than she had in days. Lately, the potentials had been multiplying so rapidly that she risked losing control, but Jen had just provided her with the missing piece, the key that would enable her to reassert a semblance of order.

  Of course it’s here, she chastised herself, not at the previous stopover where we picked up Nate Almont at all. Why didn’t I see that?

  Because she was tired, over-extended, her attention fraying, and that made her liable to miss things, which would do none of them any good.

  Simply fitting the presence of the narwhal here on Barbary into the models and patterns and data fields that surrounded her had an immediate impact. Suddenly everything began to make sense. Potentials evaporated, fading away like so much smoke on the wind, and the roiling confusion of colours and patterns that she had been battling to interpret for so long calmed to something approaching order, assuming a rhythm she could now move with and comprehend, coaxing out individual strands to be examined, their contribution to the overall melody understood at last.

  She saw the stylised narwhal, saw the unimposing building it adorned. She saw a gang of youths setting about an older man: a ragged remnant of a man, a rough-sleeping vagrant at the limits of his strength; a man who couldn’t possibly defend himself; a man who was about to die.

  No! He couldn’t be allowed to. If he did, they would fail. This was the only thread that offered salvation. If this man lost his life that night, none of them would survive what was to come, and with them the future of humanity perished. The butterfly effect; she could see the ripples of his demise spreading out through the timelines, erasing potentials and creating new ones – poor alternatives in every case. This unprepossessing man, this apparent nobody, was the key to all their tomorrows. Not the key, she corrected herself, but a link; a vital link in the chain of fragile consequences that represented humankind’s slender hopes. If that link failed, it would all fall apart.

  Saavi finally saw what had to be done.

  “Oh,” she said, blinking and staring. This wasn’t what she had expected, and it certainly wasn’t what she wanted, but since when had personal preferences mattered in the grand scheme of things?

  Now that such a clear course of action had presented itself, she set about following the alternative paths, those eclipsed by the likely, eliminating potentials and narrowing down the possibilities to confirm that she hadn’t missed anything. She worked with diligence and focus, taking the same professional approach she always had, to ensure there were no mistakes or oversights.

  Finally, satisfied that all other avenues had been considered and rejected, she sat back and smiled. There could be no doubt; this was the only way to proceed that would preserve the glimmer of hope for a favourable outcome.

  She glanced down to where Jai, ever faithful, ever vigilant, stood guard. Currently configured as a doll with braided blonde hair, the automaton met her gaze. Saavi had always resisted the temptation to anthropomorphise Jai, but at times she couldn’t help but think of him as the only one who didn’t judge her.

  There followed a brief wait, which was necessary for the real world to catch up with her intentions, before she stood up and left the cloud chamber, Jai at her heels. It always impressed her how easily her T’kai guardian coped with stairs. It reached the top of the flight leading from the cargo bay scant seconds behind her, and the two walked the gantry and entered the ship’s living quarters. Everything was quiet. This was now early morning, and everyone else would be asleep; apart from Leesa, perhaps. Saavvi wasn’t convinced she ever really slept.

  As they reached the airlock, she spoke softly: “Raider?”

  “Yes, Cloud?” came the subdued response.

  “Under no circumstances are you to inform the captain or any of the crew that I’ve left the ship. Is that clear?”

  “Protocol requires me to…”

  “Raider,” a little more firmly this time, “we both know you are more than just an AI and can act beyond the parameters of your programming. It is essential for the future wellbeing of the crew that no one should follow me. I need to do this alone, without interference from any of the others. It is the only way to safeguard their future. Is that clear?”

  “It is. Given your explanation, I shall comply.”

  “Thank you.”

  She took her leave, walking through the airlock and stepping out into the cool night air, unnoticed by anyone.

  Fourteen

  Cornische was woken by Raider. It was still dark, which meant night both internally and externally – they’d synched ship’s hours to local time when it became clear they would likely be here for a few days.

  “Captain, you’re needed.”

  “What is it, Raider?” he asked, trying to kick start his brain even as he registered that it was a little past two in the morning.

  “We have both a visitor and a tragedy to contend with.”

  That did the trick, fast-tracking him to a rough approximation of wakefulness.

  He pulled on some clothes, saying, “Show me.”

  Raider summoned an image of outside, where a man stood, bathed in sensor lights from both the ship and a nearby port building. He looked unkempt, in mismatched shabby clothing, long hair and beard. Cradled in his arms was a slight form, unmoving.

  “Is that… Saavi?” Cornische said, not wanting to accept the image.

  “Yes.”

  Cornische was out of his quarters, hurrying towards the airlock. “I didn’t even know she’d left the ship. Why wasn’t I informed?
”

  “Cloud gave strict instructions that I shouldn’t tell you.”

  “When this is over, you and I are going to have serious words regarding responsibility and the chain of command,” he snapped.

  Cornische reached the airlock, slamming the manual control without even stopping to ask Raider to open it for him. Then he was through the outer door and down the stairs before they’d fully extended.

  He strode across the solid ground – hardened by the multiple take offs and landings of countless ships over many years – to where the vagrant waited. The man was tottering, looking to be at the limits of his strength. He held Saavi’s unmoving form out to Cornische.

  “I’m sorry,” the stranger said, and a corner of Cornische’s numbed mind realised that the man was crying. “I… There was nothing I could do. She saved my life, but there was nothing…”

  The streets were all but deserted, the few people abroad at this hour either in a hurry to be somewhere else or too drunk to concentrate on anything beyond getting home. Nobody paid her and Jai any attention, and Saavi found the Blue Buccaneer easily enough, despite its discrete signage.

  She’d seen the restaurant in the timelines and she’d seen a violent assault, a beating that would turn murderous if no one intervened, but she hadn’t seen how the two were connected. For a moment she simply stood in the street, listening, waiting. Then she heard it: the grunt of someone gasping in pain, the growl of someone venting their rage.

  The building was detached. To its right a narrow alleyway led to a side entrance – for the kitchens or perhaps deliveries – and here she found them.

  As she’d seen in the potential, the victim appeared to be a vagrant, a down-and-out, the sort that societies throughout history had done their best to ignore unless their collective conscience was stirred.

  Three men and a woman stood around him in a loose circle, all much younger, all laughing and jeering as they pushed him from one to the other across the space between them. A further man stood slightly removed, lounging against some crates and swigging from a bottle.

  This one was mouthing a stream of vitriol, encouraging the others to shove harder. “You fucking leach! You’re worse than scum, shit we’d be disgusted to find on the soles of our shoes. The universe’ll breathe a sigh of relief when you’re gone. No one’s gonna miss you. We’re doing the world a favour, wiping you away.”

  It was inevitable that, made to stumble back and forth between the circling youths and propelled by ever rougher shoves, the man would lose his footing. He fell almost comically, trying desperately to stay upright, perhaps realising that once on the ground he might never get up again.

  First one, then another boot went in, the youths taking run ups as if kicking a ball, sending their victim from his hands and knees to curl up in a foetal position, trying to protect his head.

  Saavi had seen enough. None of them had noticed her as yet.

  “Jai,” she said quietly. “The five figures standing are all hostiles. When I give the word, go offensive.”

  “Hey! Leave him alone!” she yelled, stepping forward. “I’ve seen you. I’ve recorded your faces and I’ll report you if you don’t stop now.”

  They noticed her then, all right.

  “Piss off, little girl,” said the bottle swigger, evidently the gang’s leader.

  One of the others detached himself from the kicking ring and came towards her – a little unsteadily, clearly high on something. “Maybe the little girl wants to join the party,” he said, leering.

  “Jai, offensive.”

  The bodyguard stepped in front of her, its small hands peeling back to reveal gun barrels. The deceptively quiet pop of their discharge was almost lost against the ongoing sounds of the kicking the other three continued to administer with such dedication and evident glee.

  The leering youth’s expression changed into one of puzzlement, as he convulsed and went down.

  “What the hell?”

  The laughter and the jeering and the kicking stopped.

  The leader, the one who stood apart, pointed to Saavi and Jai. “Get the doll,” he shouted. “That’s what’s doing the shooting.”

  The other three might have broken and run, Saavi thought – being shot at clearly hadn’t been part of their plans for the night – but the leader’s goading stopped them, his authority wouldn’t let them. They hesitated for a moment, staring at their fallen friend, as if still struggling to process what had happened to him.

  “Go on!” the leader yelled.

  That tipped the balance, and the three charged, snarling, shouting, and drawing weapons as they came – one a knife, one a cudgel adorned with glowing red script, the other some sort of energy weapon, its muzzle crackling with blue light as he raised it.

  Jai was quicker. Again the double popping sound and two of them stumbled and fell – the girl and the boy holding the energy weapon – but the third kept coming, voicing a wordless yell as he raised the cudgel over his head. There was no hope that he might stop and run, not any more; he was committed: do or die.

  Jai decided it would be the latter.

  The bodyguard’s guns fired another round, and this final youth jerked and fell, the cudgel spinning from his hand. But he was in motion, and had closed the distance between them considerably, so that he was almost on top of Jai when the morph nailed him. He skidded forward, his momentum carrying him into Jai, bowling over the bodyguard as his body came to rest on top of it. The small morph disappeared beneath his outstretched arm and chest.

  “Jai! No!”

  A horrified Saavi rushed forward, to push and roll the youth’s unresisting but heavy body off her companion.

  Once uncovered, the mechanoid stirred and tried to stand, but seemed unable to operate its legs. She picked it up, lifting it away from the dead man.

  “It’s all right, Jai,” she said. “We’ll get you fixed once we’re back at the ship.”

  She screamed as pain exploded through her left shoulder.

  “Bitch!” a voice snarled.

  Only then did she remember the fifth man, the one who had seemed to be the thugs’ leader. She struggled to turn, to lift a hand in defence, catching the flash of a blade as he stabbed her again. Lower this time, just above the waist, agony lancing up through her back, her side.

  Saavi tried to crawl away, dreading the next blow and remembering the frenzied kicking she had seen meted out mere seconds earlier. She knew she couldn’t take any more of this, but felt helpless.

  Then the whole world seemed to throb, to pull apart and congeal again, pulsating in jagged lurches of splintered reality.

  At first she thought it was the pain, her injuries and the loss of blood loosening her grip on consciousness, but her attacker didn’t press his assault. In fact he shuffled away, just a step or two, staggering as if disorientated and mouthing an inarticulate bellow, part rage and part fear, so perhaps it wasn’t her at all.

  Frame…

  She heard again the unmistakeable pop of Jai’s gun. The man above her grunted, having assumed no doubt that her bodyguard was disabled and no longer a factor. Big mistake. She saw him grimace and watched as he collapsed forwards, his face coming to rest on the ground close to where she now lay, his unfocussed eyes staring into her own.

  Then the pain grew too great, welling up to sweep through her, swallowing any possibility of coherent thought and driving consciousness before it.

  She came round to find a stranger cradling her head and staring at her, a bewhiskered face framed by a tangle of unkempt hair; nice eyes, she noted, kind eyes, though his breath could have done with some freshening.

  “Miss, little girl… Please don’t be dead. You can’t be dead.”

  “I’m not yet,” she tried to say, but the muscles in her face refused to obey and her mouth struggled to form the words; all that emerged was an unintelligible groan.

  “Thank God!” he seemed on the verge of crying. “And tha
nk you. For saving my life, I mean.”

  “Ship,” she croaked. This one word took all of her concentration and required more effort than any single word ought to, but her perseverance paid off.

  “Ship? You’re from a ship?” the vagrant said.

  “Yss… Mst g’ back…”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll take you back. What’s it called, this ship of yours?”

  She focussed and with the last of her fading strength gasped, “Line… a Linkin,”

  No, that wasn’t right, but it must have been close enough, because the man seemed to understand her. “The Lion of Lincoln, really?”

  She barely heard that at all, his words floating away as darkness reached out to wrap her in an all-consuming embrace.

  Cornische accepted Saavi from the vagrant, cradling her tenderly in his arms. Her eyes were closed – whether naturally or shut by the vagrant as a mark of respect, he couldn’t say. She seemed even smaller now than she had in life: so light, so frail. He could tell immediately that she wasn’t breathing.

  “Saavi!”

  The cry came from behind him. He looked round, to see Jen and Leesa rushing down the steps towards him. Of course they would have heard the commotion despite the hour, especially Leesa.

  “I’ll get the gurney,” Jen called, turning halfway down the landing ramp to rush back into the ship.

  Too late, he wanted to say but didn’t. He wouldn’t rob her of at least the attempt to help, however futile.

  Leesa was there beside him, staring at his face as if searching for a reason to hope, but all he could do was shake his head.

  “Saavi,” she murmured, reaching out to stroke the girl’s head.

  “Saavi?” the vagrant said, as if the name meant something to him. “I didn’t realise… didn’t know her name.”

  “You said that she saved her life,” Cornische said. “What happened?”

  “I was taking a beating from a gang of youths high on goodness knows what… Five of them. They were really getting into it and weren’t about to stop, not while I was still breathing at any rate. Then the girl turns up out of nowhere, demands they leave me alone. And she had this weird looking doll with her that shot one of the thugs. After that they turned on her and the doll, and…” He gestured to lifeless form. “Why did she do it? Why did she risk her life for me?”