Defy the Stars Read online

  Noemi knows what her duty to God is right now:

  Fight like hell.

  2

  AS ABEL FLOATS IN ZERO-G, IN THE DARK QUIET OF A dead ship’s equipment pod bay, he tells himself the story again. The black-and-white images flicker in his mind with total accuracy; it’s as if he’s watching it projected upon a screen, the way it was shown centuries ago. Abel possesses an eidetic memory, so he only needs to see things once to remember them forever.

  And he enjoys remembering Casablanca. Retelling himself every scene, in order, over and over again. The characters’ voices are so vivid in his mind that the actors might as well be floating in the pod bay beside him:

  Where were you last night?

  That’s so long ago, I don’t remember.

  It’s a good story, one that holds up to repetition. This is fortunate for Abel, who has now been trapped in the Daedalus for almost thirty years. Roughly fifteen million, seven hundred and seventy thousand, nine hundred minutes, or nine hundred and forty-six million, seven hundred thousand seconds.

  (He has been programmed to round off such large numbers outside of actual scientific work. The same humans who made him capable of measuring with perfect precision also find the mention of such numbers irritating. It makes no sense to Abel, but he knows better than to expect rational behavior from human beings.)

  The nearly complete darkness of his confinement makes it easy for Abel to imagine that reality is in black and white, like the movie.

  New input. Form: irregular flashes of light. The drama stops cold in Abel’s mind as he looks up to analyze—

  Blaster bolts. A battle, no doubt between Earth and Genesis forces.

  Abel was marooned here in just such a battle. After a long silence, warfare has reignited in the past two years. At first he found that encouraging. If Earth ships were again coming to the Genesis system, they would eventually find the Daedalus. They would tow it in to reclaim everything inside, including Abel himself.

  And after thirty terrible years of suspense, Abel would finally be able to fulfill his primary directive: Protect Burton Mansfield.

  Honor the creator. Obey his directives above all others. Preserve his life no matter what.

  But his hopes have faded as the war has churned on. No one has come to find him, and no one seems likely to do so in the near future. Perhaps not even in the distant future. Although Abel is stronger than any human being and a match for even the most powerful fighter mechs, he can’t tear open the air-lock door separating him from the rest of the Daedalus. (He tried. Despite knowing down to the hundredth decimal point the ratios working against him, Abel still tried. Thirty years is a long time.)

  Neither Abel himself nor this ship would have been abandoned lightly. Abel has run through the various scenarios many times, but he can’t accept it. Mansfield could have fled to save himself, meaning to return for Abel, but he was simply never able to. Then again, the battle intensified so much that day that any human escape from the Daedalus might have been impossible. In all probability, Mansfield was killed by enemy troops on the same day Abel became trapped.

  And yet, Burton Mansfield is a genius, the creator of all twenty-six models of mech that currently serve humankind. If anyone could devise a way to survive that last battle, Mansfield could have.

  Of course, Abel’s creator could also have died in the years since. He was in his late middle age thirty years ago, and with humans, accidents sometimes happen. Perhaps that is why he hasn’t come. Surely only death would keep Mansfield away.

  There is another possibility. It is the least likely of all plausible options, but not impossible: Mansfield might still be aboard, but in cryosleep. The cryosleep chambers in sick bay could keep a human alive with minimal life support for an indefinite amount of time. The person inside would be unconscious, aging at less than one-tenth the normal rate and waiting for a rescuer to bring them back to life.

  All Abel would have to do is get to him.

  Before he can find Mansfield, however, someone must find him. So far, Earth’s forces have spent no time searching the debris field for functioning ships. Nobody has found Abel; no one is even looking.

  Someday, he tells himself. Earth’s victory is inevitable, whether it comes in another two months or two hundred years. It’s entirely possible for Abel to live that long.

  But Mansfield would surely be dead by then. Maybe even Casablanca won’t be interesting after that many years—

  Abel tilts his head, peering more carefully at the sliver of star field he can see through the pod bay’s window. After a moment, he reaches out to the closest wall and pushes off, bringing himself closer to the view. In the ultra-thick glass, he has to look through his own translucent reflection, with his short gold hair fanned out around his head as though he were in a medieval manuscript, gilt-edged.

  This battle is coming nearer to the Daedalus than any other ever has. A few fighters are already on the edges of the debris field; if Earth’s forces continue separating the Genesis troops from one another, some of the mechs will soon be very close to his ship.

  Very, very close.

  He must determine a method for sending a signal. It would have to be a low-tech solution, and the signal could only be very basic. But Abel doesn’t need to send information to a human, doesn’t have to worry about the limitations of an organic brain. Any small pattern amid the chaos might attract the attention of another mech—and if it has a chance to investigate, its programming will compel it to do so.

  Abel pushes against the wall to propel himself through the pod bay. After thirty years, he is all too familiar with the few pieces of equipment in here with him, not one of which can help him power up the ship, open the pod bay door, or communicate directly with another vessel. But that doesn’t mean they’re useless.

  In one corner, suspended a few centimeters from the wall, is a simple flashlight.

  Helps with repairs, Mansfield had explained, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. Humans can’t rewire a spaceship with nothing but their memory of the schematics. Not like you, my boy. We need to see it. Abel remembered smiling back, proud that he could replace weaker humans and serve Mansfield better.

  And yet he could never hold humanity in contempt, because Mansfield was human, too.

  Grabbing the flashlight, Abel launches himself toward the window again. What message should he send?

  No message. Only a signal. Someone is here; someone seeks contact. The rest can come later.

  Abel holds the light to the window. He has not used it during the past decades, and it still holds sufficient charge. One flash. Then two, three, five, seven, eleven—and so on through the first ten primes. He plans to repeat the sequence until someone sees him.

  Or until the battle ends, leaving him alone for many more years to come.

  But maybe someone will see, Abel thinks.

  He isn’t supposed to hope. Not like humans do. Yet during the past several years, his mind has been forced to deepen. With no new stimulation, he has reflected on every piece of information, every interaction, every single element of his existence before the abandonment of the Daedalus. Something within in his inner workings has changed, and probably not for the better.

  Because hope can hurt, and yet Abel can’t stop looking out the window, wishing desperately for someone to see him, so he will no longer be alone.

  3

  CAPTAIN BAZ SHOUTS, “INCOMING!”

  Noemi steers sharply downward, spiraling through the twisted metal remains of newly destroyed mechs. But the Damocles ships keep spitting out more and more of them—far too many for her squadron to handle. Only the Masada Run volunteers came out today, only to practice. They weren’t planning to fight a full mech assault, and by now it shows.

  The mechs are everywhere, their oversize exoskeleton attack suits streaking through the battered ships of her squadron like a meteor shower raining fire. As they approach, the exosuits unfold from metal-beamed, sharp-edged pseudo-vessel
s into monstrous, metal-limbed creatures capable of smashing through the Genesis lines as if they were punching through paper.

  Every once in a while, as one of them zooms past her ship, Noemi gets a glimpse of the mechs themselves—the machines within the machines. They look just like human beings, which sometimes makes it hard for newbies to shoot. She hesitated herself in her first firefight when she glimpsed what seemed to be a man in his mid-twenties, with deep tan skin and black hair much like her own; he could’ve been her brother, if Rafael had had the chance to grow up.

  That very human hesitation nearly ended her life that day. Mechs don’t hesitate. They go for the kill every time.

  Since then she’s seen that exact same face looking back at her dozens of times. It’s a Charlie model, she now knows. Standard male fighter, ruthless and relentless.

  “There are twenty-five models in standard production,” Elder Darius Akide had said, the day he addressed her training class for the first time. “Each has a name beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, from Baker to Zebra. All but two of these models look completely human. And each one is stronger than any human can ever be. They’re programmed with only enough intelligence to perform their core responsibilities. For manual-labor models, that’s not much. But the fighters they send against us? They’re smart. Damned smart. Mansfield left out only the levels of higher intelligence that could allow them to have something like a conscience.”

  Noemi’s eyes widen as her tactical screen lights up. Her hands tighten on her weapons controls, and she fires the instant the mech flies into range. For one split second she sees the thing’s face—Queen, standard female fighter model—before both exosuit and mech shatter. Nothing’s left but splinters of metal. Good.

  Where’s Esther? They haven’t flown within visual range of each other for a couple of minutes now. Noemi would like to signal her, but she knows better than to use comms for a personal message in the middle of combat. So she can only look.

  How am I supposed to find anyone in this? she asks herself as she swoops in over a few more of the mechs, blasting as fast as her weapons will work. Their return fire is so ferocious that black space momentarily turns brilliant white. The invasion forces keep getting larger. Earth keeps getting bolder. They’ll never let up, not ever.

  The Masada Run really is our only hope.

  She thinks about that scared kid shivering as the troops ran to their fighters. His call sign hasn’t appeared on her screen in a while either. Is he lost? Dead?

  And Esther—scout ships are almost defenseless—

  Finally the fighting around her breaks for a moment, and she has a chance to scan for Esther’s ship. When she finds it, she feels a moment of elation—it’s intact, Esther’s alive—but then Noemi frowns. Why is Esther all the way over there?

  Then Noemi realizes what she’s looking at. Horror injects adrenaline into her veins.

  One of the mechs has turned away from the battle. Just—left the fight. She’s never seen a mech do anything like that, and it’s heading toward the debris field near the fallen Gate. Is it malfunctioning? Doesn’t matter. For whatever reason, Esther decided to tail the stupid thing—probably to investigate what it was up to. But now she’s isolated from the Genesis troops who could protect her. If the mech finds what it’s looking for or receives an override from its Damocles, it will turn on Esther in an instant.

  Noemi’s duty allows her to defend a fellow fighter who’s in extreme risk. So she banks left and accelerates so hard the force shoves her back in her seat. The blazing firefight around her darkens until her view of space is again clear. The Genesis Gate looms, surrounded by armed platforms. Any ship that approaches without Earth-signature codes gets destroyed. Even from across the galaxy, Earth keeps Genesis in its laser sights.

  As she speeds toward Esther’s location, Noemi looks less at her sensor screen. The view from the cockpit shows her enough. Esther’s scout ship zips around the mech, using energy bursts from the sensors to muddle the mech’s workings, but that doesn’t accomplish much. So far the mech is dodging the bursts expertly. Apparently it’s headed toward one of the larger pieces of debris—no, not debris, an abandoned spaceship, some kind of civilian craft. Noemi’s never seen anything like this ship: teardrop-shaped, roughly the volume of a good-size three-story building, and with a mirrored surface that has dulled only slightly over the years. It must have been all but invisible to the naked eye until recently.

  Is the mech going to bring that ship back to Earth? The ship was abandoned, obviously, but it doesn’t look seriously damaged from here.

  If Earth wants it, then Noemi intends to keep them from getting it. She imagines destroying the mech and recapturing this teardrop ship for the Genesis fleet. Maybe it could be outfitted with weapons, turned into a warship. God knows they need another.

  Then again, this mech is a Queen or a Charlie. She and Esther will be in for one hell of a fight.

  Bring it on, she thinks.

  Noemi cuts her speed as she gets closer. Esther and the mech are almost within weapons range—

  —then the mech turns, shifting its aim. It stretches its exoskeleton arms and clasps Esther’s recon ship like a flytrap plant snapping shut around a bug. The way they’re positioned, the mech must be right above Esther, the two of them looking into each other’s eyes.

  Weapons! But Noemi can’t shoot the mech from here without blasting Esther, too. In ordinary combat, she’d fire anyway. Any pilot captured like that is dead already, and at least she could destroy the mech.…

  —but this is Esther, please not her, please—

  The mech releases one arm, draws it back in a startlingly human movement, and punches straight through the hull of Esther’s fighter.

  Noemi’s scream deafens her in her own helmet. It doesn’t matter; she doesn’t need to hear—she needs to save Esther.

  Ten minutes. Our exosuits give us air for ten minutes. Go, go, go, go—

  The mech releases Esther, swivels toward the abandoned ship, then stops, finally picking up Noemi on its scanners. She fires before it can even aim.

  In a flash of light, the mech explodes into so much tinsel. Noemi zooms through what’s left of it on her way to Esther, metal splinters clicking against her cockpit shell.

  Can we get back to the troop ship in time? No, not with the battle still raging. Okay, then. This abandoned ship. I can restore life support, maybe; if not, it’ll probably have oxygen I can use to re-up Esther’s reserves. First-aid supplies. Maybe even a sick bay. Please, God, let it have a sick bay.

  She feels as if she’s praying to nothing. To no one. But even if God doesn’t speak to her, surely he’ll listen for Esther’s sake.

  Noemi’s visor fogs slightly. She has to hold back her tears, though, or else they’ll float through the helmet and blind her at the worst moment. So she bites the inside of her cheek as she swoops down toward the devastated scout ship. “Esther? Can you read me?”

  No reply. By now Noemi is out of communications range for the other Genesis fighters. If Captain Baz even realizes they’re missing, she won’t hear Noemi’s broadcasts, won’t know to send help. Maybe they’ve both been written off as dead already.

  “We’re going to make it,” Noemi promises Esther, and herself, as she edges her fighter closer. Now she can see how badly the scout ship’s been mutilated—metal shredded into shards—but Esther’s helmet seems to be intact. Is she moving? Yes. Noemi thinks she is. She’s alive. She’s going to make it. All I have to do is get us to that ship.

  One switch throws a towline into space, and the magnetic clamp catches Esther’s hull. Quickly Noemi scans the mirrored vessel in front of them. There—a docking-bay door.

  Powered by magnetic sensors, the plates of the circular door fan open automatically. Noemi’s so grateful she could weep.

  It’s always seemed to her that her prayers are never answered, that nobody up there has ever heard her pleas. But God must be listening after all.

 
4

  THE GENESIS FIGHTER BLASTS THE QUEEN MODEL, demolishing it, and Abel feels hope shatter within him—an almost physical sensation. It’s as if his inner framework had collapsed.

  I must perform a full self-diagnostic at my first opportunity.

  Abel floats in the dark chamber of the pod bay, just one more piece of equipment suspended in the cold dark. Without gravity. Without purpose. How long will it take his internal batteries to wear out? They were made to last approximately two and a half centuries… but he is using very little energy, which means they might go on for twice as long. More. It could be more than half a millennium before Abel finally breaks down into mere scrap metal.

  He can’t fear his own death. His programming doesn’t allow it.

  But Abel can fear hundreds of years of solitude—never discovering what became of Burton Mansfield—never again having any use.

  Can a mech go insane? Abel might find out.

  At that moment, however, he sees one of the Genesis fighters tether the other and power forward. Are they—is it possible—

  Yes. They want to board the Daedalus.

  These are enemy troops. They are Genesis warriors. As such, they are an immediate threat to the safety of Burton Mansfield.

  (Who might not be aboard any longer. Who could have died years ago. But Abel acknowledges these probabilities while still prioritizing the elimination of any risk to Mansfield’s life—any risk, no matter how remote—above everything else.)

  The Genesis ship is headed for the main docking bay. Abel reviews the ship’s layout, and the Daedalus’s schematics flash before him as though projected on a screen. He has reviewed them often, these past thirty years; Abel has reviewed every piece of information he’s ever been exposed to in an effort to keep himself from succumbing to sheer boredom. But the plans are more vivid now, the lines on the blueprints burning as brightly as fire in his mind.