Элизабет Бир - Ancestral Night

“Tell me this isn’t lingering brain damage from taking an EM pulse to the temple,” I begged Sergeant Halbnovalk.

She shrugged sympathetically. “It might be. Brain injuries manifest in various ways over an extended period of time. When you get back to the Core, you’ll want a full scan.”

Halbnovalk gave me 16 milligrams of an opiate derivative, some caffeine, and told me to drink a lot of water and go lie down in a dark place. I took the pills and the water and laughed at her, but I felt like the joke was shared.

When you get a light-exposure headache, you can shut your eyes. The question of what to do when you’re suffering a headache due to a sudden gust of gravity is a whole different question. For one thing, I wasn’t sure what organ I should be turning off to mitigate the symptoms. For another, testing all of them one by one seemed likely to lead to catastrophic failure rather than relief.

There seemed to be some question if I would live long enough for the pills to take effect. And I didn’t have time to wait. So I just tried to tune that sensory stream out as much as possible. Which was doing Farweather’s work for her, but it was my only means of remaining functional.

I had walked away from Connla and Cheeirilaq to consult with Halbnovalk, and I was still rubbing my temples when I walked back. Grrrs and Murtaugh had joined them.

As I walked up, I gestured to the Baomind mirrors. “Will they help us fight?”

Singer said, “Unfortunately, they’re not a weapon, it turns out.”

Worried for nothing. Story of my life. “You said it sang flares out of its star.”

Singer said, “It can control the gravitation around it, yes. The flares are a side effect of that process.”

“So it’s been playing with its star because it was curious, and now the star is going nova?”

“Your statement implies a causal effect that is not necessarily the case.”

“As it may be,” Connla said. “ Can your new friend sing a flare out of its star… for us?” He jerked a thumb out the observation port in the rough direction of pirates and Jothari.

“I am,” Singer said, “reluctant to request that the Koregoi swarm take an active role in tactical offense.”

You don’t want to give it any ideas, said Grrrs.

“Precisely.”

Beyond the observation window, in utter silence, the Freeport ships glided in pursuit. We were running before them as ships ran before pirates of old, and they were gaining—somehow.

This was getting to be a theme.

Dammit, we’re supposed to be faster than them. They should have to worry about g-forces—oh right. Never mind, Singer, don’t tell me why I’m wrong.

At least I’d remembered that they had artificial gravity as well.

Headache or no headache, I groped out into the fabric of space-time, wincing at blinding pain. I felt… It seemed like space was piling up in front of us. There was… drag, for lack of a better word. Drag, in a space that ought be void of fluid dynamics.

Singer, Farweather is dragging us down.

Let me— Oh. I see.

You can feel space-time now?

The vessel can! As long as I am part of the Prize—

“The Baomind been out here for millions of ans with nothing to do but think,” Connla snapped. “What makes you believe you could possibly give it any ideas it hasn’t had already?”

Maybe I can do something about this, Singer said.

I have a suggestion, Cheeirilaq said. Our most urgent problem is Farweather.

I could have kissed it, if I were the kissing type and it weren’t a giant bug.

Murtaugh didn’t speak. They just tipped their head at the window.

Grrrs said, How is Farweather more pressing than pirates, an incipient nova, and a system-sized alien AI?

Cheeirilaq buzzed. The pirates are still fifteen minutes of travel away. We’re not maintaining our lead on them, and shipmind says we should be. Friend Haimey has diagnosed gravitational manipulation on their part, or on the part of the Jothari. But Farweather seems a likely vector for that.

“If they fired now, it would take long enough for the projectile to reach us that we could dodge. They can’t use a beam weapon because the Koregoi mirrors are pretty good chaff, whether incidentally or by design.” Connla was at home in his role as strategist. “We should be pretty safe until they get close.”

“And Farweather is capable of sabotage,” I said. “And I think she’s the one doing something with gravity that’s tugging us backward like we were trailing a lightchute.”

“Great,” said Murtaugh, speaking finally. “We have roughly fifteen minutes until they’re in range.”

“Fifteen minutes can be a lifetime,” I said. “Connla, can you and Singer buy us more than that?”

I’m making some progress here.

Connla said, “We’ll get as much time as we can.”

“We also need to think about rescuing the Baomind,” I said. “If their star is that unstable, we need to move them as soon as possible.”

Cheeirilaq stridulated, Perhaps Haimey and I should go after Farweather, leaving the rest of you to sort out the larger problem. Division of labor.

I tried not to let on how badly my head was pounding. No sick time in a combat zone. No point in worrying my friends.

Then I realized I could tune it down a little more. I’d been without my adaptive functions for so long I was forgetting they existed.

Grrrs looked at me. It looked at Cheeirilaq. Its antennae drooped in resignation, feathery fronds folding softly. All right. I won’t argue. But you’re the mission command, Goodlaw. If you get killed running around in space for no good reason, because you just had to be in on the glamorous part, I’m not covering for you so your offspring get the death benefit.

Fair, Cheeirilaq agreed.

“I’ll back you up,” said Singer. “Haimey, put your helmet on.”

Didn’t I say I wasn’t chasing Farweather out onto the hull?

Because it was faster to travel through the ship than around it, Cheeirilaq and I did not exit from an airlock close to Ops. Neither one of us wanted to spend any more time outside the hull than necessary, given the possibility of a shooting fight. I was trying to tamp myself down as much as possible, but we had to assume she knew we were coming. And she was armed.

We exited the vessel much closer to Farweather’s presumed position, and from two different locks so we could try to flank her.

From the outside, without the reassuring solidity of the observation ports, both the Baomind and the pirate armada seemed more threatening. The Prize was the ice core of a strange technological comet. It streaked on a long arc that would curve it slowly and gently into the well of the enormous, dying giant burning iron at the center of this system. Nearly all of its light was still being eaten up by the flock of glittering dark motes that now surrounded us as well. We were at the heart of a trailing teardrop of Baomind particles, a long arc of them whipping out behind us all the way back to the numberless and incomputable motes that still enshelled the star. I could see now that they were not all the same size, though I had only been able to pick out the largest ones from the previous distance, even under magnification.

Nearly all the star’s light was eaten up. But more escaped as its sphere attenuated, reaching out into our enveloping pseudopod.

And beyond the swarm, along the trailing curve of the teardrop, the Freeport and Koregoi ships gave chase and dodged the tail. They were big enough, close enough to see unaided now, swirling and sliding around each other as they jockeyed for position. The pirate ships, unmagnified, could have been drone motes against the velvet of space. But the two Jothari factory ships were as big as moons, which is to say I could have covered them with my thumbnail at arm’s length.