Tobias Buckell - Ragamuffin

The two wormholes here orbited high above Bujantjor and followed each other closely. The leading one led upstream to Thule via several more wormholes. The trailing wormhole led downstream to a nexus, giving one the choice of Tsushima or forking over to Yomi. Either way eventually lead to Ys, and from there downstream was the dead wormhole to New Anegada.

Though most of the parties around Bujantjor chose to keep their distance from the wormholes, a few small structures cluttered nearby to offer ship repair or depot services.

A few security drones fired thrusters to lower their orbits and move to intercept. Satellites and other ships cluttered the map.

Nashara strapped herself into the acceleration chair as warnings kicked on. Jamar broke all lane-speed limits, three gravities of acceleration pushing Nashara hard against her restraints as alarms still blared.

“We’ll never be welcome here again,” Ijjy muttered over the ship’s open channel.

A third voice, Sean’s, chuckled back. “If we get home, I ain’t coming here.”

Oscillations shook the ship. Jamar added another half g to the acceleration and dumped what looked like a cloud of chaff in a carefully plotted arc right by the mouthes of the wormholes. Wastewater and garbage, Jamar had told her.

Radar stabbed out from the Hongguo behind them.

The Queen rose too quickly as they caught up to the wormholes, they were going to overshoot. Garbage filled the display, washing out everything. Then the Queen Mohmbasa spun itself around and the drives fired. Three, four, then five g’s of acceleration.

The ship dived for the wormhole, covered by a jettisoned cloud of confusion. Any mistake now while accelerating, adjusting, not putting them dead center through the wormhole would see them coming out the other side of the wormhole in pieces.

Jamar would be one with his ship, a hivemind of shipwide calculations ripping through his head as they hit the wormhole at the blink of an eye.

Nashara smiled just before she felt her stomach flip, the world turn inside out and then back, and a chime sounded.

“Wormhole transition complete.”

Bull’s-eye. Jamar appeared on her wrist screen. “We beat them here, so they’ll come through slow and cautious, drones first, looking for surprises.” They had the jump, just not the fuel to continue. Jamar drew the new figure into the air. They’d eaten up a fifth of their stored fuel in that little activity. “We need to find fuel. Ijjy’s hunting down leads as well.”

“I’ll find your fuel.” Ys lay downstream, the last of the tightly controlled Satrapic worlds. If she got them fuel, she might also find a way to get off this hunted ship. Get into one of the shipping depots and find a way to get out of this mess.

Nashara started querying the Queen Mohmbasa ’s databases for what resources lay out there.

Possibilities. The buoys around the wormholes held the latest info about fuel prices, maps, and passed on information of interest to ships like this. The blackout froze them, but Nashara had all the previous pieces of information to sift through from before it fell.

Several minutes of searching turned up only dispiriting findings. Fuel ran expensive right now. Several waves of price shocks and inflationary pressures putting the quantities they’d need for running and fighting out of the ship’s reach. The Queen Mohmbasa had no formal credit accounts. What gold or silver they had aboard was not going to be enough.

They could, Nashara thought, just take it. Everyone labeled the Ragamuffins pirates anyway.

She perked up and reset her filters and found something odd enough to catch her attention. A distress call from the carefully controlled confines of Ys. From the habitat the Satrap there inhabited.

This far downstream, Ys was a distant frontier for a Satrap. Most Satraps dwelled past Thule, except this notoriously silent and withdrawn one.

The Hongguo wouldn’t expect the Queen to run straight into the arms of a Satrap, now would they?

Nashara leaned back and let her breath out. Her duty was to hand herself over to the Ragamuffins. But to this doomed ship? Would it make it all the way back so she could hand herself over to the Ragamuffin council leaders? And what were the Raga now but a sorry group of tattered merchant ships huddling on the other end of a burnt-out wormhole, harried and harassed by the rest of the worlds. How would she help them?

There was no Earth, no Chimson, no New Anegada for her to go to. Just humanity scuttling around underfoot of their alien superiors. She had no home. Any future would involve running.

Nashara leaned forward, tired. If Jamar was right that the Hongguo were out to destroy the Ragamuffins, then hiding out wouldn’t help them any. She needed to help any way she could right now.

And it was better to run while well fueled, she thought.

Three hours later Nashara met Sean outside the cockpit. Covered in grease, cut up, and his eyes wary, he sized her up. She returned the critical gaze: a built man, but not natural muscle, she could tell just by the way he held himself. She spotted one pistol holstered by the ankle, another under his left shoulder, and a two-foot-long, varnished stick hung from his belt. Well armed. She liked that in a man.

“Nashara.” He shook her hand.

“You’re Sean?”

A nod. Nashara squeezed past him into the cockpit and looked back. “Nice wood.”

He blinked and looked down at his hip. “Thanks. It’s from Earth.” He pulled the stick free and handed it to her. Confident.

“Kalinda?” It was a stick-fighting martial art common among the Ragamuffins.

“Yeah. You fight?”

“Capoeira,” Nashara said. “Usually with machetes. You?” She rolled up the sleeve of her shirt.

“You a mongoose?” That broke the ice. Sean rolled up his sleeve to reveal the same tattoo Nashara had. Among the Ragamuffins the mongoose-men were an elite set of fighting specialists, the wickedest tools in the Ragamuffin arsenal.

Ijjy appeared and Nashara noticed the two sticks in his belt again. Kalinda as well? Ijjy wobbled through the air at them and tossed her a covered cup and a pouch. “Real food.” He grinned.

Nashara caught them and looked at them. Ginger beer, and some stew in the pouch. Homemade. “What is it?”

“Peas and dumplings,” Sean said. “Need to use it up before it go bad. Made it back when we could still cook.”

Nashara twisted the top and squirted. The ginger beer triggered memories of sitting around with friends before armoring up and heading out to fly wormhole patrols.

The back of her head prickled. Didn’t need those memories. She pocketed the ginger beer and stew. “Thanks, I’ll eat these later.” She floated into the cockpit, over to a screen, and tapped her wrist to bring up what she needed.

“You have something for us?” Jamar opened a single eye.

“Yes.” Nashara faced them and tapped the screen.

“ This is Kara, from Agathonosis ,” the screen vibrated. “ We’re starving. They’re killing each other inside .

“ Please send help, whoever hears this. We only have days left. Oh, shit. Stratatoi have found us .”

“What the hell a stratatoi?” Ijjy asked.

Nashara shrugged. “Maybe station security? Don’t know, not important. What is important is that this was passed on by a ship called Toucan Too that was going to swing by the habitat to see what was going on. The habitat this little girl is caling from seems to be in crisis, and it’s just hanging in empty space near the upstream wormhole at Ys. The habitat Agathonosis will be the last place anyone expects us, and I will bet has fuel.”

Ijjy was already shaking his head. “No way, man.”