Amongst the Vibrant Stars

An excerpt

When the engines began whirring down, she pulled off the goggles with her free hand, revealing her emerald eyes that were evenly set around her thin, upturned nose.  She let out a sigh of relief as she came to the realization that this was not her last landing.  She pushed the bangs that were in her eyes to one side as she disengaged her hand from the controls, forming them back into fingers that she wiggled to make sure they worked properly. She may have clipped the wing, but she needed both hands if she was going to get the battery hidden away somewhere in this station.

                “Roody?”  She pushed herself up from the chair, stumbling toward the door.  Swinging it inward, she found the common area of the ship was in utter chaos.  The table that had been in the center of the room was now turned sideways and pressed against the small kitchen.  Pinned up behind the large, heavy metal table was a bulky CogMech, his chipped white and red frame peeking out from behind it as he struggled to push the table off him.

                “Roody!” Anthica said, running over to him.  She tried to pull on the table with her metal arm, only to have it barely lift. 

                “It would appear I held onto the wrong item,” Roody said, his gears straining.

                Anthica smirked. “Yeah, the only thing not bolted down, and you grab it.” The accident had not damaged him other than a few more chips on his paint, but she thought it only added more character.  She shrugged and tapped the holster on her leg, which opened with a hiss. She retrieved the thin, black baton. “This shouldn’t take long,” she said, pressing the baton between the table and the reinforced wall. Then, she pulled from her belt pouch a small brown chip and squeezed it in her fist.

                “Hands free,” she said, watching as Roody let go of the table.  “Gerriden.”  As she said the words, gold mist leaked from her fist as the energy tingled through her body and disappeared into her mechanical arm.  This all took no longer than a second before there was a gasp of air around the baton as the end near the table shot outward, slamming the table away, giving Roody enough room to push himself back to his feet. 

                The CogMech towered over Anthica, having to duck his dented, dome-shaped head under the low hanging ceiling of the common area of the ship.  It was something that Anthica had needed to recalibrate his sensors for in the past to keep him from denting his head further.  His bulbous form made him look squished within the confines of the room.  With a careful movement, Roody began dusting off his orb-like shoulders.  The black faceplate on the front of the dome was curved with two glowing circles that represented his eyes blinking down at her.  He moved his arms and hands, doing a diagnostic check of his systems.  “It is not often that you need to assist me, Miss.  But, in any case, it is much appreciated.”  He continued his checks as Anthica put the baton back in its holster.

                “Eh, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before,” she said, patting him on his armored frame where there were three letters printed in faded red ink: RU-D.  “Either way, we should see if this mission was worth the trouble.”

                “Should we not, first, see if the ship is still functional in the vacuum of space?”

                Anthica shook her head.  “We need to make sure the vault hasn’t been opened, then we’ll worry about space-worthy vessels.” She moved toward a locker, opening the door slowly to make sure nothing important was going to fall out. 

                “As you command,” he said, finishing his checks he faced her, hands down at his side, his eyes turned to half crescents that angled up toward each other as he tilted to look at the ground.

                “Oh, don’t sulk,” she said, pulling out a bag and stuffing a few items in.  “It doesn’t suit you.”

                Roody remained motionless, only his faceplate blinking back to the normal round circles.  “I am not sulking,” he said, crossing his arms. 

                “You are,” she said, checking a small screen on the sleeve of her bodysuit.  “Look, I know you want to make sure we’ll be safe and all that, but I don’t have time for it.  We need to crack this vault and get back before those idiots send someone else.  Besides, once we got what we came for, then you can do all the safety checks you want.”  She craned her neck to look up at him.  “How’s that sound?”

                He rose in height, as if inflating, arms still crossed.  But after a moment, he deflated again.  “It is suitable.” His voice was flatter than normal.

                “Good boy,” she said.  “C’mon.”

*     *     *

                The ramp of Anthica’s ship, The Traceless Fortune, hissed as it lowered with a loud crunch on the metal floor.  The clanking of boots and metal claws echoed in the cavernous hangar as they exited the vehicle.  Anthica was already getting the small screen on her wrist to display a map of the station while Roody followed behind her, scanning the area. 

                “We’re going to have to find a console or something,” Anthica said, her fingers scrawling over the screen as she tried to see past the area they were in, but the map was fuzzy or nonexistent.  “Got anything on the scanners?”

                Roody’s dome-shaped head spun around fully before fixating his eyes on her.  “It would seem there is some severe interference with both communications and my various forms of scanning techn—”

                Anthica held up her hand. “A ‘no’ would have sufficed.” She looked up at the hangar, chewing on her cheek.

                The hangar was in disarray, and for once, it was mostly not her fault.  She had managed to land the ship near the midpoint of the one-hundred-fifty-yard-long landing area.  The opening hummed with the sound of an invisible energy field that held the air in the station.  There was a chunk of the grappling mechanism protruding from the far wall that she had hit on the way in, and bits and pieces of her ship’s once smooth plating scattered across the dusty floor, intermingled with the ancient wreckages of other ships that had been less fortunate.  Several pock marks and scorched burns were spread around. The possible culprits, two large turrets embedded in each corner of the far wall, now lay dormant. 

                She poked the side of a ruined fuselage with the toe of her boot.  She was glad that it was not her that had lodged the ship into the hangar floor.  But looking at the strewn skeletons of other interested parties from decades before her time, she began to wonder why the guns were not functioning.  The thought was interrupted as Roody clanked up next to her.

                These ships are from the Hyperion Era,” he said, moving to edge himself between the wreckage and Anthica.  “They are not emitting any dangerous chemicals but with my sensors at limited capabilities, perhaps it would be better—” He trailed off as Anthica made her way through the ship graveyard as something caught her attention. 

                She never could find a way to stem his need to protect her.  She had tried multiple times to reprogram him, but some hidden kernel of code always sprouted up, returning Roody to his worried, overprotective self.  So, her only answer was to either ignore him, or cut him off before he got to rambling.

                “Check it out,” she said as she arrived at a small console set in the wall next to a large bulkhead door.  “Our ticket in.” She smiled back at him.  A break, she thought.  She began to look over the device that would allow her the access she needed, maybe even an updated map.

                Anthica pressed a small button behind her ear.  With a quick motion, a section of synthetic skin slid out of view, hidden behind it was a small compartment.  From within, she produced a small cable.  With a quick rake of her metallic fingers, tore open the side of the console revealing the innerworkings of the machine.  She clipped her cable onto a bundle of wires.  It would only take a few moments to hack through the operating system and take control of the door.  By the time she had finished the simple procedure, Roody had made his way to her.

                “Communications are still down,” he said, bending slightly backwards to look toward the top of the door.

                Anthica ignored his statement as she focused on the screen.  “No map,” she clicked her tongue with disappointment. “But this should get us in.”  A few typed commands and the lines of code halted.  No warnings or alarms were always a good sign, and Anthica’s eyes looked up at the large metal door with an eagerness of a hungry tigress.

                With a hiss the door disappeared into the ceiling revealing a cold, dark hallway beyond.  Anthica removed the cable and returned it to the compartment as she stood, the synthetic skin repelled back into place, hiding the implant once again.  She pulled free her mulpur from its holster and produced a white chip with several thin engraved lines emanating outward from the center.  She squeezed it in her palm, brought the word to the front of her mind.  “Liux,” she said, the tingle running through her again illuminating the end of the rod in a bright white light that pushed back the dark shadows and evaporating the ones they left on the floor.

                “What about the ship?” Roody said, spinning at the hip until his torso was backwards.  Then his head turned to face Anthica.  “The damage is far more severe than anticipated.”

                “Well, you’re more than welcome to stay here,” Anthica said as she began walking into the corridor.

                Roody took only a few dozen milliseconds to mull over the situation, but even for him, this was a long time.  When he made the decision to follow Anthica it was done at the knowledge he would be of more assistance with her than with the ship.

                The two weaved their way through the abandoned corridors, noting the various materials left in their shipment crates; things like centuries-old food packets, water parcels and clothing had been abandoned untouched.  Rooms were left in similar states of disfunction and disrepair, furniture flipped over, tablets and clothes strewn across dusty floors.  It was a surprise to Anthica that the power was still working.  They had found a security office, but upon checking the computer terminal, Anthica was disappointed again to find no records or even a general layout of the station.  Roody’s scanner situation had not improved like she had hoped either.  She began to feel a kernel of doubt building in her stomach but buried it with deep breaths, using her focus on her next steps to fend it off. 

                “I think we need to make our way toward the center,” she said, pointing down a narrow hallway with several floor plates pulled away and resting against the wall.  The battery they were here for had to be in a vault or a holding chamber, of that Anthica was sure, but she was not sure of where to start.  She needed a quicker way to find it then simply a self-guided tour. “There has to be a central node or something we can work with.”  She put a metallic hand on her hip and rubbed her chin with the other.

                “There could be more success on higher floors,” Roody said, looking up at the ceiling as if he could see through it.

                “I doubt it, big guy,” she said.  “There would need to be a large amount of space for both a jammer and the vault.”  Her eyes widened as something clicked.  “Large space.”

                “The void of space is quite vast.  Many scholars believe—”

                Anthica put up her hand again, shaking her head.  “No, no, we need a way to find a large empty area that they would have the vault in, right?”

                “I believe that is our current objective,” Roody said, rocking on his hip joints to move his torso, simulating a nod.

                “Can you recalibrate your sensors to pick up pockets of soundless space?”

                Roody stood silently.  “I am reprogramming them now, although I believe there will still be a sufficient amount of interference.”

                “Shouldn’t matter,” she said, waving away his concerns with her hand.  “Whoever built this place obviously wanted it to look like it’s not there.  That’s where we catch them.”  She rubbed her hands together as a smile crept across her face.  If it would work how she expected it, then they would be back the museum in no time, and she would not have to worry about losing it, her only home left.  She just needed the battery in her hand.

                She was looking at her hands and noticed Roody was motionless again.  Her eyes moved up to the CogMech, expectantly.  Roody watched her, his eyes tilting on the screen to mimic a pet turning their head sideways in confusion.

                “And?” Anthica said, raising both eyebrows.

                “Oh,” he said, straightening his stance; his faceplate turned black as three curved lines formed horizontally on the plate representing signal transmissions.  A few seconds later, Roody’s round eyes reappeared.  “I uploaded the data to your personal database.”

                There was a beep on her wrist screen, and she scanned through the newly created map.  With a tap of her finger, the map projected out of the fabric, and above them hovered a three-dimensional map of the station.  However, it was not very detailed, but as she had suspected, there was a large void near the central cylinder of the station.  There were several other smaller voids, but Anthica was sure that the largest was her target.

                “Quarks and quasars, there it is,” she said as she put a finger into the void.  She smiled at the CogMech and bounced her eyebrows.  “Society, here we come.”

                It was only a few minutes later when the momentum of her excitement became mired by doubt and the absence of warmth sent shivers down her spine.  The corridors had become frigid as they moved deeper through the station.  Anthica’s breath plumed as she pulled her jacket around her.  A large blast door blocked their path, and even before Roody pointed out the ice crystals forming on the inside of the door, Anthica was already looking for a way around.  A quick scan of the map, and the nearby grates, she deduced that they were far too narrow for even her small body to fit into. 

                “It would appear that this corridor has suffered a breach,” Roody said, running a metallic hand through the ice crystals, carving a path of shiny metal.  He turned the palm toward his faceplate and studied it.  Transfixed, he wiggled his fingers back and forth, watching the ice crack and shatter with each movement.

                “Focus,” Anthica said, knocking on his torso which let out a hollow ring.  “We’re going to have to go through that door.”  She pressed a button on her jacket and a maroon synthetic fabric sprouted from her lapel, wrapping around her body, contouring around its dips and curves.  The silver ring hidden inside the collar connected into a single piece, releasing several thin rings of metal that wrapped around Anthica’s face and contoured to the curves of her cheeks.  There was a hiss as the front section of helmet shifted material into a smooth, reflective visor. 

                As the suit finished, Roody had regained his composure.  “What do you mean, Miss?  There is clearly a breach.  If we open this door, the station will decompress.”

                “I know,” she said.  “But as soon as we open this door,” she pointed back at a similar frame where another blast door hid from sight, “that door will close as well.  It’ll be fine.”

                “I do not agree, Miss,” Roody said, taking a more authoritarian posture.  “An action like that would be certain death for you.”

                Anthica shook her head.  She knew that Roody would try this, his constant vigilance always got in the way.  She would have to manage it in order to get what she wanted.  “Look, I’ve never been one to go back empty handed, and I’m not gonna start now.  If we don’t get it, someone else will,” she said, looking up at the CogMech’s attempt to look intimidating.  “If we don’t get to that vault, we’ll be homeless.”  With a thought, the visor cleared away the reflective surface, she pouted her lower lip and gave her best look of complete sadness.  “You can’t protect me if we have nowhere to live.”

                Roody stood like a statue, but there was a whirring deep within his core.  His eyes began to blink and flicker.  He twitched slightly and swayed.  The flickering stopped and Roody stiffened, resetting his posture.  “We must go through the door,” he said with an unusually cold tone.   

                For the fifteen long years she had known Roody, she always had been annoyed by his constant misunderstanding of basic social cues and his trivial facts he would spout out like a broken search engine.  However, when Roody was forced into some cold, calculating machine instead of the CogMech he was, she found herself missing those useless facts.  Anthica’s stomach turned over as she watched his stilted movements, but deep down, she knew it had to be done.  Or, at least, that’s what she told herself. 

                He turned and faced the large door; his round eyes were crescents that made him look ferocious and angry.  He found the small console next to the door, then looked at Anthica as his hand expanded to reveal a set of rods and cables that jabbed into the terminal, crashing through the plastic coverings with a crack.  “Prepare for breach.”

                Anthica nodded and knelt with her knuckles against the floor, in her metallic hand was her mulpur tool and in the palm of her gloved hand, a series of pale-green chips.  She could feel her pulse thumping in her ears as she tried to steady her breathing. 

                There was a blaring alarm followed by an immense chunking of metal on metal.  Hisses were the last sound before the room erupted.  Light objects flew into the opening as the door split in half.  As it opened further and further, Anthica could feel the wind pressure pulling at her.  Roody lifted his leg and stepped down on the bottom half of the door, forcing it down, grinding gears in the operating mechanism.  His free arm grabbed hold of a support beam as his dome-head spun to look at Anthica.  “Release,” he said.

                With that, she pushed off and for a moment, floated.  She had been in zero gravity before, but this was different.  There wasn’t that sickening feeling as if her stomach was going to float away, but it did not feel like she was falling either.  Before she could explore it more, she was sucked through the opening, flying passed Roody.

                She immediately felt the bitter cold of space as she found herself soaring through a large opening.  The nebula and stars spun passed.  What had been rooms and possibly living areas, was nothing more than a massive chasm in the station.  The remnants of the rooms were now clamped down against the bare skeleton of the station’s structure far below where Anthica was soaring.  Whatever else had been here had most likely been flung into space, a fate she hoped to avoid.  But Anthica did not have much time as she was flung toward the opposite end.  She watched as her target, a section where a small tongue of what had been a corridor, slowly dipped below her.

                She also noticed she was gaining altitude, heading outward toward the void of space, or worse, to be slammed into oblivion by the spinning station.

                She prepared for this, however.  And with the green chips in her fist, she thought of the word.  “Veroos!” the word rang in her helmet as the blaze of green mist seeped from her glove.  With a blast of green energy from her mulpur, she corrected her course over the chasm.  She had practiced this plenty of times back on her ship, having Roody set the chamber to zero-gravity, but there was something different about actually having to do it in space that made her heart race.  It was not fear that pumped through her, but joy.  She pointed across her body and forced the rod to blast again, stopping her momentum in that direction. 

                Anthica steadied the mulpur outward with her metal arm, her other hand still leaking a trail of green mist as she prepared to blast again.  She could feel the tingling sensation waning as it poured into her cybernetic arm and down into the mulpur tool, glowing a vibrant green color.  The excitement vanished as Anthica focused on the improvised landing.  She had one shot to slow herself down enough to make it to the door and not smash against it like a bug against a windshield.  She readied the command, but she saw something moving out of the corner of her eye.

                Then the klaxons began ringing.

                “Impact eminent,” read across the visor as she saw a chunk of debris had found its way inside the station’s spinning outer ring.  Her focus split, she hesitated for a moment.  Then she aimed the mulpur upwards, blasting her down as the chunk glided above her with a lumbering elegance.  It silently slammed into the station.  There was no sound as air steamed out into space in huge white jets.  It would have been quite the spectacle had it not shoved Anthica outward.

                The blur of nebula and grey station blended as she toppled end over end out toward the endless reaches of the void.  Her only thought was to stop the spinning as the mulpur blasted out green energy that slowed her topple through space.  She was frozen as she watched the station swing toward her.  Although she had managed to stay within the station’s spinning ring, she was now a stationary being in a volatile whirlwind of machinery.  In this moment, she could only manage a single word. “Roody?”

                There was a blur of motion as something clipped her.  She was yanked backwards, her arms and legs extended out as the force of the pull folded her body so that her head almost touched her knees.  She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see.  Is this what dying feels like, she thought to herself.  Did her luck finally run out?  The thoughts raced through her mind faster than she could stuff them back into their deep recesses.

                The backward force stopped as she found herself on the tongue that she had originally aimed for.  She was gently placed in the corner as Roody turned and punched his fist into the blast door.  The silent steam poured out around his smooth white plating as he wrenched a wider opening.  Once it was wide enough, he tore and ripped at the door until the white streams of air stopped, then forced the door open with a clawed foot.

                Anthica pushed herself toward the opening and collapsed once inside.  Roody ducked his way in and yanked the bottom half upward.  With his other hand, he began tearing off a large chunk of the interior wall before welding it over the hole in the door.  It took a few moments but the massive blast door opposite of the one they entered, slid open. 

                With a press of the button on her lapel, Anthica found herself breathing the stale air of the station again, which was a surprising relief.  A small comfort from being forced to breathe the limited oxygen she would have had if she was still stuck in space.  Her mind raced as flashes of spinning off into space were slowly quelled.  She was safe now.  As safe as she could be on a derelict, spinning station with several holes in it.

                “Thanks, big guy,” she said, still trying to catch her breath.  Sitting up, Anthica pushed the damp hair from her eyes with a shaky hand.

                “That was quite dangerous,” he said, his normal tinny tone had returned.  “I had warned you of certain death.”  He looked down at the scrapes on his forearms and metal hands.  “But we are safe now.  I will begin rerouting a safer path for our return trip.”

                Anthica nodded as she removed the glove, a small burn smoldered in the palm.  She checked the wrist screen and saw that her time was still dwindling away.  Sighing as she pushed herself to her feet.  No rest for the weary, she thought.  She should be used to Roody saving her skin from her risky choices, but she did not have the time to ponder on it.  She decided she would give him a few upgrades when they got home, a token that will, most likely, go unnoticed by the CogMech, but make her feel grateful all the same.

                It was only a short way through more abandoned corridors until they reached the large voided area.  Anthica was glad to see that there was no ice crystallization on these thick doors, but they looked sturdy enough that Roody was not going to be able to simply punch his way through.  But every door had a weak point, if her experience with ancient technology had anything to say about it, and this door was no exception.  Roody and Anthica spent only a few moments scanning the door until they found their entry point, a single joint piston that held the door in place.  For Anthica, it was amateur, but if it made her job easier, she was not about to complain.

                The door swished open and her face lit up as she saw the massive vault in the center of the room.  She moved in with a careful eye on the floor and walls as she knew that even this close to the end she could not distract herself with the future, she could do that safely back on her ship.

                “I scanned the tiling on the floor, Miss,” Roody said.  “Seems there are no pressure plates or trip sensors within this room.”  This new information troubled her.  A vault of this size, at the center of this station would surely have defenses. 

                “Well, keep an eye out,” she said, continuing before Roody could respond.  “And that’s not a literal thing.  Just keep scanning.”

                “Affirmative,” he said.

                She tilted her head at the vault, giving it a good once-over before she interacted with the terminal that stood like a small island before the metallic mountain of a vault.  The culmination of all her research and hard work was about to come to fruition.  This was the moment, she thought, the moment in which she could finally show the Society who she was.  For years, she had tried it the safe way, playing by their rules. And for those years, she had been pushed down and ignored.  She knew that they would not mind that she used the battery to power her mulpur tool, because they would see her brilliance in it.  Of course, they would see that the sacrifice would be well worth the benefits her tool would bring to the Society.  She continued to convince herself as she hacked through the terminal.  But, with an ease that made her feel somewhat uncomfortable, she opened the vault.

                Alarms rang out as yellow flashing lights filled the otherwise white room.  She took a step back as the terminal disappeared into the floor.  The heavy metal door swung open releasing compressed air in white streams as the seal of the door was broken.  The room gained a musty, old smell that reminded Anthica of her office in the museum.

                “This is it, Roody,” she said over the alarms, her eyes widening.

                Roody nodded as he returned to scanning the room.  The door barely missed them, stopping both its movement and the flashing lights and alarms as well.  The room returned to its somber white décor.  Inside the vault was a computer terminal and a large screen.  Anthica was puzzled as she stumbled toward it. 

                “Um, huh, I was expecting-” her voice trailed off in an echo as she chewed her cheek.

                “More?” Roody said.

                “Something,” she said with a shrug.  “Guess this computer will have something on it?”

                “I believe this is what some scholars would call, anticlimactic,” Roody pointed out, his faceplate showing a smile.

                Anthica sighed and ignored him.  She was far too busy trying to figure out where she went wrong.  She began questioning her timetable as she hacked into the computer.  From her estimation and how quickly they arrived, there was no way anyone could have gotten here from the Society before her.  And from her experience, they were never wrong about artifacts.  She had to know what this battery was and why there was all this trouble for it.  Hacking this computer was easier than the door leading in, whatever worry she had pushed out of her system earlier had brought reinforcements.

                Within the screen, was a single folder labeled “Chinnaru Battery”.  She opened it and began skimming through the various files.  As she read, she only got more worried and frustrated.

                “What is wrong, Miss?  You heart rate is increasing at abnormal rates.”

                “It’s not here,” she said, shaking her head as she kept looking.  She pounded on the keyboard as she skimmed more and more files.  “Looks like it’s not a physical thing?  I don’t know, none of this makes any sense.”  She pulled free the cord from behind her ear.  “I’ll need to download it directly.  Maybe my implant can make some sense of it.”

                The screen glitched and shifted.  It flickered rapidly and then suddenly stopped.  The file she had been reading was different. 

                “What?”  She typed in a few commands, but the only other file was a program and the one on the screen.  She skimmed through it. “Okay, now I’m really confused.”

                “Perhaps there is a virus,” Roody said.  “I do not think downloading that prog—”

                “It’ll be fine, Roody,” she said.  “Besides, this says that the program IS the battery.”  Without another word, she plugged into the computer.  She took in a deep breath before she hit the download button on the screen.  A rush of sharp pain stabbed at her skull.  She had gritted her teeth in preparation, but it was never enough.  A stinging pain that felt like hot iron spikes were being dragged across the inside of her skull erupted from the implant.  She gasped for air and fell to her knees.  She squeezed her eyes and screamed.  Just when she felt that she was not going to be able to handle any more pain, it all suddenly stopped. 

                Anthica looked up and saw Roody standing with her cable unplugged dangling limply in his massive fingers.  “Okay,” she said with a wince.  “Maybe there was a virus after all.”

                “I wish you would heed my warnings, Miss,” Roody said, handing back her cable.  “It would make both our primary functions easier.”

                She pulled herself up next to the computer and checked the download percentage.  A flashing 99% greeted her.  “I guess I got most of it.”

                “I will prepare the antivirus scanner when we return to the ship,” Roody said.

                She smiled.  It was nice to have him around for times like this.  “We still need to fix said ship,” she said, “but I guess we can worry about—” she trailed off as she noticed movement behind Roody’s large frame. 

                “It would seem you have other things to worry about, Ms. Trace,” called a voice from outside the vault.  She recognized the scratchy voice coupled with that accent.

                “Captain Delacroix?” Anthica said with wide eyes.