Damascus

by MisterFour

In his dreams there was never any sound, just The Damascus, as it died.
The backdrop a void of eternal black that was space, with the silver and gold arms of
galaxies cutting the obsidian. The cyclopean structure of the merchant ship turning end
over end like a titan’s toy, red fires arcing across its titanium-derridium hull.
He had been flying away from it, turning on a magnetic axis, afterburners blazing
like electric infernos. The pirates had been flying Starhawks, like so many titanium
yellowjackets against the cold night of space. He remembered the screams
of the merchant fleet over his communications, his fire drawing neon lines across
the pirate’s blood and smoke colored spacecraft, exploding them like novae.
He had completed the axis, lasfire lancing towards the pirate leader’s craft,
its pilot’s threats becoming screams, enjoining that of the crew of The
Dramascus. He had felt the impact of chatter cannon upon the reactor grid of his own
craft, the control panel becoming a firestorm in his cockpit.
He had not blacked out. It was the opposite. The white hot plane before him
becoming less bright as The Dramascus spilled bodies and fragmented components. He
felt the shrapnel in his leg, his arm, the warm, wet, coppery smell of his own blood filling
the cockpit. The Yellowjacket a blossom of fire streaking to engulf him…
He woke up then, sweating like a fever victim. He dreamed of it often, this far
out in the Fringe. It was only a dream now, but it really happened.
…
Jaycex got up and put his face in his hands, still shaking from the dream. The
room smelled like a gymnasium locker. Everywhere on the walls were vidscreens and
pics of old places and comrades. An =RG= plaque composed entirely of depleted
uranium sat on one wall, suspended by micro-gravs. Doris, his room computer, sensed he
was awake.
“Coffee, Jaycex?” The cold, feminine voice queried.
“Yes, thank you, Dorry.”
“You have an appointment with Madam X in one hour. Would you like
details?”
“No. Thank you.”
He dialed up a vidscreen to show him an outside view of Kirosky Station.
Godcraft Industries, the primary designer of these stations, loved to make them look
imposing and militaristically resilient. Like two old Earth VCR’s, with columns and
plumbing holding them together, in the void.
In his mind The Dramascus continually expired, fragmenting.
…
Jaycex had taken classes early on with Madam X. She had a love of architectural
theorems, but preferred the opinions of fellow students before delivering them to the
faculty. Her fingernails were an immaculate silver.
The Jaguar was the only morning bar on Kirosky Station. It was all brass piping
and cloned leather upholstery. The chill of the fluorescents from above stayed

respectfully dim so that clientele might witness the majesty of the Merjohln Nebulae, light
years away but still a brilliant powdery white violet, so brilliant that one could easily read
by its light without the lighting above.
The breakfast was cloned lobster and borscht.
He read the theorem, taking careful mental notes.
“And..?’ Madam X said.
“I thought the energy management systems in Galspan ships were completely
innovative? This paper seems to say they are no different than older designs.”
“The E.M.S. IS different, but the grid user-interface is a completely new design. I
just make note of the management techniques early settlers used in their ships.”
“Applied history, heh? So why do all ships have a grid built on the old system?
What was wrong with the old design?”
“It was crude. It did not have to take into account the redistribution of reactor
supply to shields and weapons. But you could jury rig the system much better. It was
very Russian. Most of the designers came from a Moscow Research Facility. Now it
would not be such a swift idea.”
Jaycex looked the holofile over again and then turned it off, handing the pen-
sized cylinder back to Madam X. “Why wouldn’t it be? Take a screwdriver, tear off a
panel and jinx the thing manually. Works for me.”
She arched a perfect eyebrow. “What if you supplied energy from the engines to
the weapon systems, and the computer decided there was insufficient resources for the
auxiliaries? The computer draws from life support, and you hit the afterburners and
suffocate.”
“Oh.”
She churned her spoon in the ersatz coffee, adding real cream, the bar’s specialty.
“I’ve got new orders, Jaycex. I’m going to Andromeda. According to command, it’s
hardship duty.”
He sipped from his own cup. “That’s good?”
“I have family there. I haven’t seen them for 5 years. I have an uncle who is a
scientist.”
Over her shoulder, the nebula flickered hypnotically.
…
He went of flight deck and checked his orders. There were seven uniformed
pilots there, doing the same. One of them was Rooster, an IK agent. He swaggered like
the rest of them, confident.
“How you been, Jaycex. Still spacin’ for RG?”
A vid screen flashed over his shoulder, like the broiling yellow of the Starhawk,
as it engulfed Jaycex’s cockpit.
“Affirmatron. I get to do a run to the Berthold today. All communication is
slagged because of the nebula they’re parked by. So they do all reports with pilots.
They’re by an asteroid field so it’s makin’ us rich.”
Rooster laughed. His jet black hair was spiky, like shards of vinyl. “Shoot, I
gotta tour with some Merchant freighter. Say they saw pirates. Just me and some yutz
named Galfried for a wingman. Easy money, if you can stand the smell of their cloner
vats.”
Jaycex programmed an affirmative into the pilot com. “Hey, do you
remember The Dramascus?”
“The Hell I wouldn’t. More ordinance dropped in that sector than the Mordarian-
Gasparov War. Starhawks…”
“Who was their leader? I can’t remember if he got bought.”
“Milos. “Duke” Milos. Deltafour got him. He even took pictures. They
put ‘em in the Fleet Academy yearbook.”
Rooster laughed, his teeth as white as plastic tombstones.
…
The Hangar Bay of The Kirosky was strangely deserted. A dozen Crimson
Firecats were aligned on one side, like Christmas Scorpions. A dissected Mako lay in
another corner, gathering microparticles of exhaust and meteor rust. Jaycex hated
Mako’s. To him, they looked like agricultural tractors.
A few shipping jocks stood under the shadow of a corporate mining ship,
swapping fables and sipping brass cups of nitrolite. Another group of wide-eyed
colonists followed a graying pilot around the various other starcraft, in rapt attention to
his every sentence. He had the stage voice of an Earth Middle-Eastern used ship
salesman, adroitly entertaining his guests, space-pale hands deftly punctuating every
opinion. His voice boomed in the artificial gravity of the near-empty Bay.
“…and I said to Star Patrol, what do you mean, three tons of platinum? Would
my ship have this paintjob if I HAD three tons of platinum? Hahahaha…”
The couplings of the pilot’s suit gleamed copper in the fluorescents. It seemed
larger than Jaycex’s own outfit. Bulkier, probably designed for spacewalks on the
surface of his craft, in the event of emergency repair.
His own slate green Firestorm floated on anti grav suspensors in the corner, with
radiation resistant decals of RG and his own personal crest scattered about it’s hull.
Stamped on the side of one wing was and advertisement for Griffon Laser Manufacturers,
and they paid him a tidy 1,000 creds a solar month for the space.
He could see a technician doing some minor upkeep on his craft, and as he got
closer he realized it was Braxus, an old techie from the Venus colonies who swore he was
pureblooded Australian. His accent had long faded, replaced by the dialect native to the
Fringe. He was decked out in a crisp blue Guild-certified technician’s jumpsuit. He had
known Braxus off-and-on for a few years.
“Heya Braxus? How’s the repair kit?”
Jaycex shifted his helmet from his right to his left so he could shake the old
Australian’s hand.
Braxus’s hair was the color of chrome. His eyes were watery and tired. He
seemed like a man who had been around the galaxy a few too many times. He shook
Jaycex’s hand with a steady grip, but Braxus looked at the ground as if his of his words were
written upon the dermoplasteel surface. Jaycex felt a little sympathy for the man, maybe
seeing one too many pilots fly off to their demise had bent him down.
“Good…good, Jay boy. Yes, it has been a long time. I was in working on the lift
servos and saw your minty vessel…Still green, yes? Tuned up the lasers, make them hit
right, eh flyboy, yes?”
Jaycex could see a little fresh work on the port and starboard weapon/thrust
panels. The rivets were a gleaming aluminum, fresh.
“Ah, thank ya, Brax. Haven’t been the same since I got lost in a minefield a
month ago. No fighting for a while, never thought of it ‘til now…”
“Yes…my pleasure, your Firestorm is my hobby, labor of love. Off to Berthold,
right? Expecting trouble? There is a meteor area there, yes? Check the shields? Perhaps
recalibrate?”
“No, thank you Brax man. Had their frequencies changed ever since I started
doing runs out there. The Nebula was playing havoc with my radar. The meteors are no
problem, now, I have a usual route. But I sure needed my radar to begin with.”
Braxus closed his kitbox, magnetically sealing it to his side. He looked at the
ground again, his face strained and tired. “Careful leaving the Main Takeoff Bay,
Jaycex. Still a little slow opening, half speed to be sure, right?”
Jaycex grinned an affirmative and pulled himself up on the side of the ship,
feeling the gravs compensate. He flipped his helmet on and slid down into the cockpit,
subconsciously flipping on preliminary takeoff controls. The yawning, exhaust-stained,
opening of the Main Takeoff Bay started to open, violet and white lights circling like a
galactic carnival.
The hatch of his Orion sealed shut with a magnetic/pneumatic hiss. Braxus
backed up and started to turn. Jaycex knocked on the plasteel of the cockpit window and
gave the aged mechanic a thumbs up. As he lifted off he did not see the Australian’s
half-wave.
A curtain of steel closed behind him. The Outer Takeoff Bay was pitted and
marked deep by a million subspace micro-particle impacts, it’s brown mustard-yellow
adamantine hold worn bright metal here and there. Once the doors opened, the cold hard
vacuum of eternal space would rush in, and great care was taken to prevent personnel
from being in here at any time. Only ships ever ventured into here, an area as big as an
Earth football field.
The oxygen in the hold crystallized instantly, and his afterburners lit as the vast
star-lit night embraced him.

Part 2 “Recoil”
He rolled the craft leisurely and drifted alongside the station, a wren aloft by solar
winds. He pulled a slide and gunned his thrusters, feeling the climb in his spine.
“If you can feel the physics, then you can feel the fight.” His first instructor often
said, and the Firestorm, much like the thin skinned Comet, gave it’s the pilot the feeling
of invincible motion with every maneuver. He would feel like an orphan in time, later
on, lost in the starry void. But here, with the Station as a point of reference, he enjoyed
these first few minutes of weightless freedom.
Reluctantly, he nosed his craft towards the electric violet smear that was the
Merjohln Nebula. He engaged the autopilot. Watching the Station become a dot. Too far
to shuttle, too close to use a Tach gate, flying to the Berthold, as profitable as it was,
could be a universal pain in the ass.
On his right crystal touchpad, wraithlike green binary code drifted hauntingly, the
computer’s subroutines silently calculating…
…
His conscious mind drifted slightly. The bright Yellowjacket flame becoming
lemonade, and he was three again. His mother handed him a glass and he pushed an
aluminum replica of a deep space fighter across the Formica tiling that was the kitchen
floor.

…
He thought of The Twist, a pane of horrific gravity light years long, a curtain of
life-killing physics that crushed Capitol ships like the cruel hand of some cold Satan, a
ripple in the void caused by immense subspace winds, marked by buoys a thousand miles
out. Physicists believed The Twist would double in size exponentially, but it would
matter little, as the universe would expand with it. One day, millennia upon millennia in
the future, it would break suns to pieces, stripping them of light shred by searing shred.
…
In his mind The Dramascus was coming apart, he imagined blood rippling out
from its hull as if it were an enormous living Earth skyscraper. The Starhawks drifted
on interstellar zephyrs, no longer Yellowjackets, but Condors of black and yellow,
drinking the gore that ribboned from the metal carcass of the Capitol ship. He was
separated from it by a wall of plasteel, banging his fragile fists against it. A scavenger
separating from the body of the dying Titan, flying on a death-wish to Jaycex. It
blossomed, the color of lemonade, smashing the window between him and space. It
burned, citrus flames cooking the oxygen around him, he was killed by a thousand forces:
hard radiation, suffocation, bone-liquidating gravity…a lemon inferno that baked
him alongside the merchants as the ship’s skin wept crimson and split asunder…
…
He gasped himself awake, sweat running like a cold hand across his nape. The
autopilot blared it’s warning of the approach of the asteroid field. A vast expanse of iron
and nickel, backlit by the arc of light that was the nebula. 4 miles of barren rock,
surrounding the Berthold.
His comm.. died with a harsh electric gargle.
He had memorized his route from space to the Berthold with a pilot’s mind, had
navigated it seven or eight times a week, and followed the route with care and precision.
The mountainous bodies of the metallic rock around him moved in ancient orbits,
creating their own gravities. The scientists in this station studied the effects of the nebula
on temporal fields, using mathematics and theory which took a decade of study to begin
to grasp. Normal pilots of merchant vessels and subspace shuttles would not venture
here, but to combat pilots it was not too much of a stretch. It was good, consistent pay
without being shot at, a precious commodity an any part of the universe for people like
Jaycex.
It was by a chunk of copper and nickel a mile long that Jaycex spotted a piece of
ferroconcrete, a griseous brick of material sprouting branches of tubing and burned
couplings. It was the beginning of wreckage, a trail of space debris that led to the twisted
and blasted carcass of the dead station.
Shells of plasteel floated amidst the chunks of titanium and similar materials that
had once been the science station. Oxygen from the station, now frozen, lay coalesced
around the remains of reactors, compressors, environmental stabilizers and the twisted
human bodies, blasted and iced by space.
Despite the hardy construction of such creations, veterans knew well what ways
there existed to destroy them. Nova rockets, tactical nukes, overrun the ship’s crew and
program the reactor to meltdown…or just attach magnetic thermal mines to the core and
set it to ignite after you had left the station. The Berthold had been 1/8 the size of other
stations. Hardly a fortress of space. Now it was so much twisted matter.
Their ships had been Darts, their hulls reinforced and treated with a polyreactive
mnemonic skin of camouflaging crysteel, usually eschewed by ship manufacturers
because the substance, as impressive as it was at making the craft it covered all but
invisible against the curtain of space, prevented shields or guidance systems from
functioning properly, precious commodities in any ship-to-ship military action. Their
afterburners had been thrice baffled and magnetically ionized to prevent as much as
possible from being seen.
The three mercenaries had waited, as patient as spiders, clinging to the pieces of
the Berthold’s hull with micro-tractors. Jaycex, still in shock from the grievous
destruction before him, perceived only an oily flicker and a phosphorescent shine of
afterburners as laser fire blazed in a neon hail upon his craft and all sides of it.
He had reacted unconsciously, reversing his own afterburners, rocketing
backwards and around in a well-rehearsed buttonhook that put him behind his
attackers before he himself had become aware of what had happened. Hours of
experience had added up to that moment, and Jaycex, much like other veterans,
performed actions like these to put themselves out of the way and in firing position when
they were shot at from behind unexpectedly. He pulled the trigger of his own lasers
with the same reflex, arcs of fire creating a flickering ghost-fire as his target’s shields
reacted. There was a moment of confusion and Jaycex saw only a shadow with the
wreckage behind it, and then felt his craft shudder…a deep mechanized groaning from
the ships systems. The lights of his HUD flashed and jumped, a wall of green code
swarming his vision. He fired again, his target a phantom, drifting and then flinging itself
out of control into the wall of what was once the Berthold Research Facility, and then
becoming a blossom of light and fragments.
There was a brief moment as he dipped the nose of his craft to the right, thumbing
the afterburners to buy himself distance, and then the systems within the Firestorm
thudded and his ship spun side over side, the afterburners gone. The weapons HUD
streaming electric warnings, the hull of his ship losing pieces of itself as he flipped, like a
falling gyroscope, towards the bulk of the asteroid field.

Part 3 “Occam’s Razor”
In eastern philosophies time is not seen as a linear construct, unlike the west. To
them time is a circle, a cycle, a river eating it’s own tail, forever flowing. Events happen,
have happened, will happen, and it is only our limited perception that prevents us from
rejoicing in the eternity that is the universe. We need only remember it is Maya, illusion,
and that our past is not our past, just as our future is not our future, it all merely is.
But thankfully, at least in storytelling, we can have a taste of the real nature of the
universe in the form of a third-person perspective.
Rewind a few hours, when Jaycex was in the silver and blue neon panorama that
is the flight deck. It is much like a chrome hotel lobby, cold, clean and organized. The
carpet is a synthetic stain resistant plasteel mesh that resists the scuffs that a pilot’s boots
can produce.
Jaycex is facing Rosterez, and Rosterez is speaking, having just laughed at the
sentence Jaycex uttered.
“Shoot, I gotta tour with some Merchant freighter. Say they saw pirates. Just me
and some yutz named Galfreid for a wingman. Easy money, if you can stand the smell
of their cloner vats.”
In that way we get a glimpse of the universe as it escapes us, a sentence is spoken
and is forever in existence. Rosterez has replied, is replying, and will forever reply. He
finishes his conversation with Jaycex, a conversation we have already heard, and now he
is approaching the Jaguar to get a drink and some chow, before his flight.
He eats at the bar, preferring the conversation there than at the tables. As
Madaline departs from her meeting with Jaycex, Rooster admires her pert behind,
wondering if she is a regular here.
Rosterez is a regular at half the bars in the galaxy.
Rosterez has three martinis, two Bloody Mary’s, and a great amount of eratz
coffee.
He would hate to admit it, but he prefers the synthetic of coffee to the real item, a
sort of creeping surrealism that enters everyone’s lives that far in the future, wanting the
unreal instead of the original item
Now we can cruise to a few hours later, unburdened as we are from the linear
prison that is time. Jaycex left the Kirosky Hangar a while ago, and Rooster is annoyed.
Rosterez is aboard his Archangel, the Pretty Baby. His ship cost five times more
than Jaycex’s, and it’s chassis invokes a feeling of fear and invincibility. He loads it
with the best available weapons and stereo systems.
“What do you mean, the merchant freighter canceled!!??”
The person on the other end is Galfreid. He is a light year away, but thanks to
Tachyon Gate communication, his voice is as clear as mountain spring water.
“They found out their cloner vats are manufacturing cancerous material, and Star
Patrol has ordered a mass recall, and they will arrest every and all vessels escorting or in
any way involved with said faulty product, that means no clones, no merchants, no
money and no job.”
Rosterez is feeling the heat. “Well, Herr Galfreid, that would have been an
inspirational example of previous knowledge if you had told me all of this before I
accepted the job…there are no jobs left for today.”
“No, Rosterez, having anticipated the whining you would undoubtedly make, I
labored intensively to provide you with a job. Do you know about the Berthold?”
“Yeah, Science and Research, Jaycex goes there a lot. What about it”
“They just got a communicae, and since their pet Nebula slags space radio, they
get all of their mail hand delivered. So that you means you get paid, pony express boy.”
“But that’s the job Jaycex has been living off of…” Jaycex says, not really feeling
all that bad.
“So? The Berthold deal is a cash cow, and there’s plenty to go around. So have
some beef jerky and quit lamenting. If you really feel bad you can split it with Jaycex.”
“Good idea!” Rosterez says, knowing full well he wasn’t about to split his pay.
“Where do I get the message to deliver?”
“Just have the station computer upload it to you ship. Bye, Rooster, hope that
rash clears up.”
“Thanks, B.S., I hope your shields were made by the lowest bidder.”
Thus ends the conversation.
Rosterez sits for a minute, drumming his fingers on the control panel.
…

Less than 15 minutes later the Pretty Baby is aloft in the interstellar void, cold
nuclear engines propelling him towards the Berthold. His com is shut off and Chuck
Berry is screaming “Long Tall Sally” at deafening levels. He hums along, thinking of
Bloody Mary’s and the physics of solar winds.
…
Put yourself somewhere in the industrialized section of Earth in the year 2000.
You are in a Volkswagon that was manufactured during the 70’s. Now backed up
into a cavern so small the rock grinds against the walls.
That’s how Jaycex feels, only he is countless miles from any human being that
doesn’t want him blasted into a spoonful of space debris.
He had pulled himself out of the out-of-control dive perfectly, and while the two
mercs were busy sifting through the wreckage of their comrade, he had used his
momentum to back into an apartment sized asteroid of nickel and silver, and he sits there,
assessing the situation, and getting more and more disconcerted as he assesses.
Jaycex monitored his controls, the HUD informing him that he no longer has
energy going into either his lasers or burners.
His computer is in a blitz, ignoring all of his manual commands. So he does what
the best do in times of crisis. He reboots the computer.
There is an electric hum and is computer come to life in Voice-User-Interface
mode.
“Good evening, Jaycex.”
It sounds like the death rattle of a twentieth century Earth toaster.
“My craft is damaged. Diagnostic?”
“Working…”
Time passes and Jaycex can feel the two fighters out there, searching.
“You have a reactor leak. Your port and starboard power couplers are
destroyed. The reserve couplers are malfunctioning. The last repair was three
hours ago.”
“What? I didn’t repair them…What is the malfunction in the reserve couplers?”
An electric rattle.
“They are missing.”
“What?”
“They are missing.”
He pauses for a second. His mind moving faster than x-rays.
“Open communication to the Kirosky.”
“That is not possible. A nearby nebula is…”
“I know, I know. Why would my couplers be missing unless…”
Jaycex puts it together. It is a mnemonic visual montage. Facts and details
forming patterns in his mind. Braxus. The fresh work on the port and starboard
weapon/thrust panels. The old mechanic, bent and worn, reluctant to look him in the eye.
Outside, Jaycex can hear the hollow detonation of blast charges. The Mercs are
looking, destroying the larger asteroids in the hopes of finding him.
He shakes, feeling the pressure. He knew he would buy it someday, getting
blasted to particles on the butt-end of space. He accepted that. Every veteran pilot shed
any illusions of long life or immortality, it came with the career. But he had jealously
wanted a fair fight, even if outnumbered, with a ship that was completely functional.
He couldn’t fire.
The reactor leak was draining, slowly.
And he couldn’t flee, he had no afterburners.
Eventually, they would detonate the asteroid he was in. Or the leak would
continue and eat into life support. It would be a passive death, just fall asleep and let the
cold void overtake you, death by asphyxiation, peaceful…
He made a fist and pounded the plasteel control panel, viciously. And then,
because it was such a useless idea, he whacked it again, feeling the cold thunk resonate
through the bones of his hand…a wall of wrath like a red curtain before his eyes.
He shudders, breathing heavily, sweating…
…and remembers Madaline and her thesis.
A warm feeling rises up from his gut, making his mind spin as he puts together
facts in his mind, like atoms in a vacuum chamber, spinning, forming, breaking apart, and
reforming again…
“Computer!”
“Yes?”
“Disengage the grid-user interface.”
“Activating.”
There was a hollow groan of systems shuddering to sleep like so many
mechanical organisms, slumbering side-by-side.
Jaycex placed his hands on the instrument panel, his fingers finding the edges of
the rectangle-shaped piece of plasteel that housed the Orion’s controls. He tore it off
with a brutal motion, rivets flying in all directions within the cockpit. Adrenalin works.
“Now, re-route power to these systems, in the following order of importance…”
And then Jaycex starts to put things together.
…
Time passes and Jaycex is not paying attention. He groped his way through what
little he could recall, ditching details for a more of the following of an idea to get a
desired result. Inevitably, he does not have the time to test everything, he only has the
vaguest idea that the theory Madaline had proposed was workable. He powers down the
non-essential systems, not knowing how much time he had, betting his rent money on a
quick fight.
He breathes in, exhaling, thumbing a control, and the ship shudders awake, the
explosions outside have stopped and he can hear the well-familiar pattern of laser fire,
indicative of a dogfight.
He clears the jagged rock mouth of the cave and his shields flicker to life, he
comes around the behemoth form of the meteor seeing the islands of debris and the violet
rent in space that is the nebula…and the briefest smudges that were the Darts, circling the
proud form of the Archangel.
Jaycex held his breath and fired a shot, Deimos falling wide of his mark.. But
what mattered is that they worked.
The Archangel performed a lazy flip and dived, it’s shields glowing briefly from
the assault upon it. It seemed to Jaycex as if it were a falcon, harangued by unseen
crows.
He fired a shot, impacting only once, still unable to get a shot on the phantoms.
He would aim at the occasional blaze of lasers or afterburners, praying for good
physics. The two Mercs seemed to separate and the bird-of-prey form of the Archangel
blazed past, diving briefly under a vast shard of the Berthold’s destroyed oxygen
generator.
“That’s Rosterez.” He heard himself say.
His back shields were hit by laser fire and began to buckle. He banked right and
began to lateral thrust, sliding in a circular arc, twisting to avoid being hit. It was as if he
was riveted to the seat of the cockpit, an automaton, and extension of the ship itself.
Jaycex burned in a loop, a bright lance of laser fire telling him that the other Dart
was still behind. He slid in a semi-circle, feeling the magnetics suspend his Firestorm
like the hand of a God. The nebula seemed to be closer, but he had no time to take in the
violet field of it. Another flip, a semi-circle, and he was out of the asteroid field, above
the plane of broken material, the Berthold miles past.
A brief flash ahead of him and his front shields took the brunt.
The hum of electrics overtook him…time stretched and impacted upon itself as all
of his will and concentration entered the fray. He could not see his opponent, true, but he
began to fight with an internal rythym, hearing the rush of his opponents afterburners, the
flashes of lasers betraying his attackers invisibility. He would catch a glimpse, a clear
streak in the dark, but then the opportunity would be gone and he would slide a lat again,
waiting…
Five minutes? Fifteen? How much time did he have? How much had past?
The nebula was closer now, a vast wall of neon cutting through space.
He turned towards it, hoping to use the advantage, that his attacker would lose
him in the light.
His shields impacted and he slid his ship in a hook, for a brief second he caught a
flash and his front shields were gone…
He reversed his thrust, falling backwards, a desperation maneuver, that the other
pilot would not fire but move out of the way as you went past…
There was silence, a white hot plane that was the near- heart of the Merjohln. His
heart stopped, his sweat stopped, his mouth a sandy depression in a vast and ageless
bleached desert…
The Dart was a blacker shape against the silver violet…he was no longer Jaycex,
he was another person, realizing that the polyreactive mnemonic skin of the craft had
overloaded and the pilot was not aware of it, swinging in confidently, assured that his
victim would be a cinder…
Someone else moved the Firestorm just enough to the side, fire lighting the inside
of his cockpit, and another person’s hand fired, not spasmodically, not sporadically, but
with the smooth precision of a surgeon with a las scalpel, cutting cleanly through the
black void, through flesh, bone, hull, the Dart becoming a blossom of fire and shrapnel,
and he was streaking towards it…
…less bright against the white hot day that was the nebula…
…and he was Jaycex again, sliding backwards and holding, latting only after his
spin was complete, the fireball that was the Dart’s remains expanding and colliding upon
what was left of his rear shields.
His vision shifted and he realized he was drifting out of control, that he had lost
consciousness only so briefly, that the Merjohln and the Merc were behind him, just like
The Dramascus was behind him, over with…
Done.
…
He limped his ship to the Asteroid field as conservatively as possible, and found
Rosterez, flying in a lazy orbit, around the wreckage.
Jaycex powered down and waited, the nebula preventing all communicae. The
Archangel loomed upon him, snatching the smaller vessel in a soft tractor grip.

Part 4 “Antimatter”
The Merjohln and the floating graveyard that was the Berthold were hours behind
them.
“I scragged the one, and looked fo you, but you had disappeared from my radar. I
looked around, couldn’t find you, and waited by the wreckage, figured that if it was the
bad guy coming back I’d jump ‘em. If it was you, I’d escort.”
“How did you hull him?” Jaycex’s voice felt hollow.
“I’ve heard of that polyreactive trick. I took a beating when they ambushed me,
so I powered up my shields from my lasers, got my bearings and moved around until I
programmed my computer to pick up the IR signature of the pilot, you just tell the
computer to perceive everything between 92 to 98 degrees. Poly stops IR, but you can’t
shield the cockpit too well. Then you see the red blip and aim for it. No explosion, his
ship just scooted off because the pilot was toast. Amazing those losers had the balls to
try that. Poly screws up your shields, can’t use missles…”
“Oh.”
Long silence.
“They killed all those people, Rosterez.”
“Yeah and frag ‘em, we killed them. And the other pirate’s will get their’s
someday.”
“But those scientists…”
“Look, I know where this is going. The pirate’s killed them, not you. Would you
have stopped them? Yes. But you couldn’t. We scragged those two punks and saved
some future lives. You ain’t perfect, so don’t go dumping on yourself. Those scientists
knew communicae was gone, but they took the risks.”
“I think it was a hit, Rosterez.”
“Off a station just to scrag one pilot? No, they got their cake, you were just
icing.”
…
He spent most of his creds on repairs. Braxus had already left.
…
He followed the electronic trail of spent credits through New Vegas, all the way
out to the Outer Reaches, he took jobs as they came, always checking the post boards for
which mechanics were on that particular base.
He was sitting in a pilot’s lounge on board The Helsinky, a Capitol Ship owned
by some Martian Firm. The room was all chrome and black velvet. Three Turks argued
around a table, drinking steaming mugs of nitrolite. They are talking excitedly about
gambling and strippers. Over their heads, a vid screen reports the death of three pilots
who had been stationed on board the Pietro Space Patrol Station. They had gone to fight
pirates, and didn’t return. Star Patrol had found their ship’s floating in that void, and had
blamed their deaths on coupling failure…
…
Braxus lowered himself down the service ladder. He was on a Construction
Platform in deep space, half a light year from the Pietro. The lower section of it had
been abandoned, nothing but rats and coils of energy routers. The walls were all exposed
components and bare metal. Somewhere, water dripped incessantly. Braxus had stored a
Mako in an old Service Station, and was heading there now.
The door hissed open and he approached the ship’s hulk, noticing that the cockpit
panel had been removed.
“Bloody hell..?” Braxus muttered, touching the burned metal with a gloved finger.
“Figured you’d have retired by now, Brax.”
Jaycex stepped from behind the mechanic, holding a slim laspistol.
“Jaycex? Hell…I thought you had…” The smile heading towards Braxus’s face
died before it got there.
“How much did they pay you, Braxus?”
Braxus stood still for a moment, as silent as an antediluvian menhir.
Jaycex pulled the trigger. The beam from laspistol slashed the helmet Braxus was
holding in half.
“ALRIGHT! Alright! I’m sorry…they made me…don’t turn me over to Star
Patrol…I can pay you.” His voice brimmed with panic.
Jaycex didn’t answer for a few long seconds. His face felt like a mask of wax.
“I’m not turning you over to Star Patrol, Braxus.”
The mechanic stood there, shaking, not comprehending. But as Jaycex fired and
cut the control panel on the wall in two with a blaze of sparks, he stepped back.
The doors hissed shut behind Jaycex. He punched a code sequence into the inside
control panel, trying not to hear the dull thuds of Braxus pounding on the derridium hull
of the door.
The Service Station spaced with a groan of servos and rumbling electrics. The
pounding ended, and Jaycex left it open, walking away and leaving everything behind
him.
…
He found work on an off-planet Ecosystem research community. It was a cloudy
day, the two distant suns making the sky glow like burnished silver, the same color of
Madeline’s fingernails.
Jaycex stood waist deep in the cold sea, letting his hands drift above the water,
almost touching.
The woman on the beach with him touched the water with a delicate toe.
“Il est froid!” She said, her accent carrying across the shore.
She looked at his face, touching her hair, her mouth.
“Comment-allez vous?”
Jaycex couldn’t see the Dramascus. He saw waves, the sky, the lush cloned
tropical jungle behind her.
“Comme ci, comme ca.” He said.
Eventually, the current carried him back to her. They left the beach behind them.