The Kassa Gambit

“Somebody has to stay on the bridge in case of an emergency,” she said. “And it can’t be Jorgun.”

So Kyle spent all his time on the bridge alone while she and Jorgun dismembered her ship. During the six- hour breaks she allowed herself for sleep, she locked herself in her stateroom. Mealtimes were monosyllabic.

Kyle tried not to feel rejected. This had to be hurting her emotionally, in ways she wasn’t ready to share yet. After this system flyby they would have five days in the final hop to Kassa. The work would all be done, the danger would be past, and they would have time to talk. To make plans. To think about a future without spiders and clones.

He was almost excited when the alarm turned yellow, and Prudence dragged herself wearily to the bridge. True, there was some risk that the enemy would catch up to them here, but they had changed the parameters of the game. They had a fighting chance.

Watching through the screen as the real world came back into focus, the light reaching their sensors no longer distorted by the physics of the node, he marveled at the serene majesty of the starry sky.

Then he frowned.

“What was that?”

A star had winked out. He was sure of it.

Prudence looked up from her calculations.

Another star blossomed, a tiny light in blackness, and died in a heartbeat.

“A course correction,” Prudence said. “That was a course correction.”

Another. Then two more, far apart.

“We’re too late. Their fleet is in front of us.”

There was nothing they could do. Kyle knew enough about piloting to see that for himself. The enemy was halfway across the system, heading for the only node the Ulysses could hope to enter. Prudence could not change her mind now. Her course had been calculated and set days ago. Even with the ship stripped to the bone she had too much mass to turn around.

They could not hope to remain undetected. Prudence had to run her gravitics at full power or accept certain death at the hands of a null-vector. They could not hope to evade. The enemy had fusion boats. They were not ruled by the distant whims of planets and stars.

Out of the majestic black sky came the ugly voice of their defeat. “Prepare to be boarded. Any resistance will be met with lethal force. Instantly.”

That the enemy had sent a ship to capture them, instead of simply sending death, was not particularly comforting.

“Let me do the talking,” Kyle begged. “I can try to make a deal. I still have contacts in the League.”

Prudence said nothing, small and still on her useless command chair.

“I’m scared,” Jorgun said.

She went to the giant and put her arms around him.

The ship lurched, clanging with contact. The enemy was not gentle. They would never be.

The sound of the air lock cycling. Boots tramped in the passageway. Kyle stood on the bridge, between the entrance and Prudence and Jorgun, trying to shield them with his body.

Men in uniforms came in. Men with guns. Ugly men, without masks. Not clones, but refuse, bits of trash recruited from the cesspits of many worlds, selling out their own kind for a paycheck and a chance to hurt somebody.

“Get down! Get down on your knees and put your hands in the air!”

There was no need to make Kyle kneel. He presented no danger to them, and they knew it. They did it because they could. Because they enjoyed it.

Kyle knelt. “I am a League officer. Do you understand? These people are working for me, on League business.”

The lead soldier struck Kyle in the face with the butt of his rifle, knocking him to the deck. He could taste blood in his mouth. The negotiations had not started well.

The men swarmed past him, pulled Prudence and Jorgun apart. They beat Jorgun to his knees.

They stared at Prudence.

“This was worth the trip,” one of them said.

The leader grinned. “Let’s have a better look.” He stepped forward and grabbed Prudence’s shirt, tearing it open.

“League officer!” Kyle tried to scream, but the soldier guarding him kicked him in the gut.

Prudence stood like a statue. Beautiful. Immobile. She looked past the men, to some distant, invisible place.

Then Jorgun, simple Jorgun, stupid Jorgun, had to see the last puzzle piece.

“These are the people that took Jelly away, aren’t they?” he asked Prudence.

“Shut the fuck up!” screamed the guard standing over him, beating down on the giant with his rifle.

Prudence turned away from him, tears in her eyes. Kyle tried to lie for her, to tell Jorgun to shut up and be still, but he was still gasping for breath.

“Stop that,” Jorgun said to the man beating him.

The man shrieked in outrage, and beat harder.

“Earth, just shoot him already,” said their leader.

“You hurt Jelly,” Jorgun said.

The man beating him stopped and turned his rifle around, bringing the barrel to face Jorgun.

Jorgun stood up.

The man unconsciously paused, disoriented by the giant’s height.

Jorgun picked him up by the head and shook him like a rag doll. Kyle could hear bones snapping like toothpicks.

“Do something!” screamed the leader.

Two men leapt on Jorgun. One bounced off like he’d hit a wall. The other one stuck, trapped in Jorgun’s arms.

Screaming a mindless, blubbery wail, Jorgun ran across the deck with the man in his grasp, charging the knot of soldiers. The leader dodged out of the way, and Jorgun and his passenger collided with the wall, bouncing off of it and into a heap on the floor.

The man he had been carrying flopped in unnatural ways, emitting a strange quiet keening sound.

The leader started kicking at Jorgun. The rest of the soldiers piled on Jorgun like wolves on a deer, trying to separate him from his impromptu battering ram. Only two men remained, one by Prudence and one looming over Kyle.

Prudence stood perfectly still. Immobile. The man guarding her could not help himself. Inexorably his attention slipped away from her, to the battle raging on the deck. Kyle kept coughing, even though he didn’t have to anymore. He very carefully did not look at Prudence, but looked away, at the fight.

And then she moved. One quick step. She reached out and touched the guard’s head, and the man fell silently, a marionette with its strings cut.

Kyle’s guard noticed. As he swung his rifle around, Kyle scrambled over the ground to his feet. He hit the man below the knees with his shoulders, sending him crashing to the deck. Two heartbeats and he had climbed on top. While the thug was still getting his bearings, Kyle struck. One punch and the man’s head bounced off the floor. Disappointed that he did not have time to hurt the man more, Kyle sprang to his feet.

A burst of gunfire peppered the wall above the knot of fighting men. A warning shot from the rifle in Prudence’s hands. But the tangle of men was inseparable. She could not shoot without killing them all. They ignored her.

The tramp of feet, too many feet. Through the entrance stomped a spider, huge and hairy and grotesque. Where its mouth should be were twin barrels. Grimly, mechanically, it sprayed the wrestling men with needle-fire, reducing them to hamburger.

Prudence unleashed her fury on the monster with deadly aim. The needles ricocheted futilely off, cutting only rubber and cloth, revealing gleaming metal underneath.

Kyle wrestled the gun out of Prudence’s hands and threw it to the deck.