Ghosts Read online

  “I have an idea,” Mel said.

  “I have thirty-seven ideas,” Anna responded. “What’s yours?”

  “Can you fake the voice of one of the architects? Pretend me have a prisoner. Tell them we’re forcing him to fly the ship. Maybe that we’ve threatened to kill him. That should slow them down a bit. Especially if they don’t think we have permission to make the jump.”

  There was a pause before Anna replied. “I wish I had more time to think it through, but it could work. We’re in position for the hyperjump. Utopia is less than two minutes out. Hyperjump in three minutes. I’m going to switch the comms to the government vessel. Please don’t interrupt.”

  There was a burst of static, then a voice filled the cabin.

  “Agprith three-one-five, why is vessel Spirit of Valor moving into position for hyperjump? They are not authorized to jump, do you copy?”

  “As you say, Utopia. We have denied permission to jump. We don’t know their intentions. They are just floating in front of the gateway. We have requested them to stand down, but have received no reply. Awaiting instructions.” The conversation from the dock was so convincing that Mel had to remind herself that Anna was playing the part. Glancing down at her watch, Mel counted down the seconds. They still had over a minute before they could jump.

  “Stand by, Agprith three-one-five,” the Utopia responded.

  There was a crackle and then the audio cut back in. “Recreation vessel Spirit of Valor, this is OPS Utopia. You are not authorized for hyperjump access. Stand down from the gateway and position yourself at the coordinates we are transmitting. Prepare for immediate boarding.”

  “Utopia, this is Tothar. I am an Asadharan citizen and owner of the Spirit of Valor. Please, wait. Just hear me out.” There was a long pause. Anna still had a minute to burn before they could jump, and was trying to slow down the conversation. Forty-five seconds to go.

  “Spirit of Valor, what is your status,” the Utopia asked.

  “I’ve been kidnapped. I’m being forced to fly this ship—I am not in control. I repeat, I am not in control. There is a weapon pointed at me.” The speech was very slow and deliberate, with lots of pauses. Twenty-eight seconds.

  There was a ten-second pause from the government ship. “Spirit of Valor, you do not have authority to jump. You have nowhere to go. Stand down from the gateway, position yourself at the coordinates we are transmitting and prepare for immediate boarding.” They were at least persistent, Mel thought. As Mel’s watch ticked down to fifteen seconds, the four points of light compromising the hyperdrive gate glowed white.

  “Wait, what—Spirit of Valor hold, hold!” shouted the frantic voice from the Utopia. “Agprith three-one-five, why is the hypergate activating? This ship does not have permission for hyperjump! Repeat, they do not have permission! Shut it down!”

  Anna’s voice cut in, in English. “Seven seconds.”

  The four points glowed brighter, the diamond space between them fading. The stars disappeared and the blackness seemed like a solid thing, like a wall. Mel felt their ship moving slowly forward.

  The frantic officer from the Utopia continued to yell. “Stop! Stop! Shut it down! Spirit of Valor, you are not authorized for hyperjump. Stand down! We will open fire!”

  “Three…” Anna said. “Two…”

  Gathering speed, they headed towards the black wall. A fiery light streaked by the window to their left and into the black void of the hyperport.

  “They’re firing at us!” Jon yelled.

  “One,” Anna said. The blackness rushed up to the cockpit window. Mel pushed herself back into her chair, waiting for the impact of hitting what seemed like a solid object. The nose of the ship melted into the blackness as the vessel shook, throwing Gorgeous and Beats to the ground. Then they were through, the space outside fading to an unfathomable darkness.

  Chapter 2

  Boredom set in long ago. The first jump took nearly a day. A day marked by that strange feeling of being frozen in blackness. If not for the slight background hum, it would be impossible to say anything was happening at all.

  With the main cabin and two smaller bedroom cabins, the ship was large enough for the five of them, although any space Beats occupied soon seemed cramped. Mel had checked the food situation. There was an ample supply of base food products for the food generators, such as proteins, carbohydrates and other substances required by different races. These could be combined in different ways with flavors added as needed. They wouldn’t starve to death any time soon, but the selection for humans wasn’t very good, even after Anna tried to reprogram the food processor with some Earth equivalents.

  The situation grew worse over the next three days. They made two more jumps, using different identifications. This was to throw any ships off their trail, but there was another reason. When they went through the first hyperport, the last missile from the other ship damaged one of the engines. It wasn’t a problem to come out at a hypergate and turn the ship around immediately for another jump. In hyperdrive, the fusion engines that powered the ships in space weren’t used. But they would need them once they reached their final destination. Anna thought they might be able to land on a planet, but she wasn’t sure they could take off again. And she had no idea how much repairs would cost and what kind of attention that would bring.

  Anna’s final solution was to change their final destination to the Latanua system. An orbiting space station would give them a place to dock for repairs without having to risk landing planet-side. Even more importantly, the Latanua system had a reputation for keeping secrets for the right price.

  Even with her watch, time had lost meaning for Mel. They had set the lighting system on a fourteen-hour cycle to simulate daylight, and Mel thought it helped. But apparently not enough, since it was technically the middle of the night, and she was wide awake.

  Gorgeous and Mel shared a bedroom while Riley and Jon took the second one, and Beats slept in the main cabin. Mel quietly got out of bed, deciding not to bother with the pants and loose shirt she had scavenged from the architect’s closet. The alien clothing fit awkwardly and she was more comfortable in the gray tights and t-shirt Kathor had given them. Making her way to the cockpit, she was careful not to wake Gorgeous or Beats.

  Once in the cockpit, she closed the main cabin door and sat in one of the two pilot chairs, looking out the window into the pitch blackness of hyperspace. She wondered if she could ever get used to it. It didn’t seem like a normal blackness. If you stared at it long enough, it seemed to breathe. She couldn’t quite describe it. Her assumption was that it was her own mind trying to make something exist where there was literally nothing.

  Mel didn’t talk, content to just sit with her thoughts. But after a bit, Anna’s hologram appeared over the console.

  “Can’t sleep?” Anna said.

  “Mmm,” Mel replied. “I think I’ve slept too much the last few days. It’s definitely getting boring around here. If you asked me a week ago I would have said I could sleep for a month.”

  “It’s difficult to go from all that physical activity to not being able to move,” Anna said.

  Mel frowned. “What about you? You’ve gone from having a body to… what? Just a floating brain? That sounds vaguely horrible.”

  Anna chuckled. “It’s not so bad. The ship is my body now, all the sensors. It’s not quite the same, but close. In the end, my artificial body was just a mechanical thing, not much different than the ship. I spend a lot of time thinking and planning.”

  “I’m glad you made it out. We couldn’t have done this without you, Anna.”

  “I’m glad I made it, too.”

  “There’s something I want to talk about,” Mel said. “I’m thinking long term here. Your current plan is to try to get the ship fixed, right?”

  “Yes. That does seem like the wisest course,” Anna said.

  “Is it? This ship can still potentially be traced. At least, I feel like it’s a danger as long as we have it. The
y’ll be looking for a ship that sustained damage too. Sure, we can bribe someone to be quiet, but then someone else can bribe them to talk. I just… I don’t trust anyone. And I don’t want to rely on anyone I don’t have to.”

  “What other option are you considering?”

  “Sell the ship,” Mel said.

  Anna’s hologram stared at Mel. The hologram was a bit awkward, because Anna’s ‘face’ didn’t actually have eyes that she used to see. So the hologram always seemed to be looking through or past Mel.

  “That’s an interesting idea.”

  “One problem we have is where to get money. To fix the ship or for bribes.”

  “I’m sure I can figure that out. Hacking into bank accounts can’t be that hard. I’m far more advanced as an AI system than anything I’ve run into yet.”

  “I know. But I'm concerned we’re going to overstep. Hacking into computer systems is just another way for them to potentially track us. I’m not saying we shouldn’t, just that we should be strategic about it. Be patient and… I don’t know, we just need to be careful. Look, there’s another thing. We don’t really need this ship. It doesn’t have the hyperdrive thing and it can’t get us back to Earth. We need to find a ship that can. What if we sell this ship, get some kind of… I don’t even know what to call it. Is it a flight or a cruise? Whatever. Get a passenger ship and do another jump. They must have those, right? That’s one more level of misdirection. Then we find a… a house, I guess. Damn.” Mel stared back out the window, her expression blank.

  “What’s the matter?” Anna asked.

  Mel suddenly felt exhausted. “There’s just so much that can wrong. We’re free, but we’re not really free. We’re being chased by this Order thingie and maybe by Kathor and we don’t even know how to get home.”

  “I’m working on getting home. I’ve been doing research about ships that can make the journey. The biggest obstacle will be money. Here’s what I suggest let’s get to Latanu, and then we’ll see what our options are. One thing you aren’t considering is that we’re in a spaceship, not a minivan. It may not be as easy as you think to find a buyer for a ship that has clearly been hit by a missile.”

  “Yeah, I guess. It’s more like trying to sell a jumbo jet, isn’t it? I hadn’t thought of that. It’s all so complicated. I don’t feel like we’re any closer to getting home than we were three days ago.”

  “One step at a time. You look exhausted. There’s nothing more you can do right now. Why don’t you try and get some sleep?”

  “I’ll do that. I think tomorrow I’m going to get Riley to work out with me. He’s probably going more stir-crazy than I am.”

  “That reminds me,” Anna said. “One of the first things we have to do when we get to Latanu is get Riley his medication.”

  Mel fell silent. The medical procedure that had given Riley his abilities had also given him a severe form of cancer. Without proper treatment, he would slowly deteriorate into the zombie-like condition he had been in for weeks on Kathor’s ship. That was another problem with Riley going back to Earth, too. At this point, they didn’t have a permanent cure. Kathor hadn’t cared enough to find one, so Mel was trying not to give up hope. But the real question was how they would find a cure without the advanced technology that Kathor had on his ship.

  “One more thing to add to the list,” Mel said.

  “He’ll be fine for a few days. Hopefully we can find what we need once we get to Latanu. Sleep well,” Anna said, as Mel rose and left the cockpit.

  Her mind buzzed, but it felt muted, as if thoughts wanted to form but had nowhere to go. She lay down, staring at the ceiling, listening to the gentle sing-song murmur from Gorgeous. She wondered if that was the alien girl talking in her sleep, although the translators didn’t indicate she was saying anything real. Finally, she drifted off, dreaming of a black void.

  ***

  Mel, Riley and Gorgeous cleared out enough space in the main cabin to engage in a mini-workout. They had managed to find improvised weapons. Mel wielded a broom, Gorgeous had two dinner knives and Riley used a hand towel. Given Riley’s supernatural athletic abilities and Gorgeous’s high level of skill, Mel thought it was completely reasonable that she should have the long-range weapon. Not that it was helping. Riley was too fast and Gorgeous too skilled for Mel to have a chance. Still, it felt good to move around and play a bit. She wished she had her pistols, though, and then immediately wished she would stop wishing for them.

  After an hour of taking turns sparring lightly with each other, Riley and Gorgeous faced off. Both of them had undergone medical procedures on Kathor’s ship that were banned by the Order. Kathor subjected Riley to genetic modifications to bring out suppressed genes that made him much stronger and faster than a normal human. And Gorgeous had been given a neurotropic enhancement drug typically reserved for the military that drastically increased the rate she could learn physical skills. Riley’s power meant that he could cover ten feet in a blink; even Gorgeous took extra precautions when sparring with him. She kept her movements compact and continuously worked angles to take away attack routes. Mel tried to analyze Gorgeous’s style, but many of her movements were so small that all Mel could see were the effects they had whenever Riley missed.

  Riley had a slight reach and flexibility advantage with the towel, but Gorgeous had two knives. They battled to a draw for several minutes, when Gorgeous slowly shuffled forward. Riley danced around, although the cabin didn’t give him as much room to move as he would have liked. He stutter-stepped, flicking the towel, trying to strike Gorgeous on the side of her head. The towel barely grazed her nose as she faded slightly back. Riley followed up with a kick, but Gorgeous anticipated it and took a half-step backwards to get out of range.

  Her intention shifted and she stalked towards Riley. He feinted to her head and she flicked her arm up, causing the towel to wrap around her forearm. She grabbed it and spun to her right, pulling Riley further in. His balance was too good to throw him, but, as he took an extra large step forward, she reached with her left hand to draw the knife across his midsection. In a blur, he pivoted to block the knife. Riley let go of the towel and tried to slap Gorgeous. She shifted a hair, deflecting the slap. Then Gorgeous stepped back and threw the towel at Riley’s face.

  Riley ducked it easily, but as he came back up, the handle of the knife in Gorgeous’s left hand thudded solidly into his forehead. Riley staggered backwards, a surprised look on his face.

  “Ow,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “That’s cheating.”

  Gorgeous looked smug. “That is being a sore loser,” she said. “Fair’s fair. Pay up.” Even Mel had to laugh at Riley’s exasperation.

  “Fine. Everyone pay attention. Let it be known that Gorgeous is the most talented, most beautiful and most inspiring fighter ever to play the gauntlets. Gorgeous is a clearly superior fighter who beat me fair and square due to her greater skill and cunning. And, next time I’m going to kick her butt. Are you happy?”

  Gorgeous moved her hands in a side-to-side motion that Mel’s translator said was an expression for ‘keep going.’ “That is a good start,” she said. “Don’t stop.”

  “Nope. That’s all you get for that sneaky move. And my head hurts. You owe me for that,” Riley said.

  “Aw. Shall I kiss your wound?” Gorgeous teased, trying to grab Riley’s head.

  “Get away from me,” Riley said, with mock outrage, pushing Gorgeous’s hands away.

  “Okay, you two, enough with having fun,” Mel cut in. “We’re supposed to be arriving at Latanu today, so we need to figure ourselves out.”

  “What’s there to figure out?” Riley said.

  Mel paused for a moment, almost afraid to say what was on her mind. “The first thing is for Beats and Gorgeous. The rest of us are going to try to get back to Earth, but Beats and Gorgeous live here, in this… galaxy.” Mel still felt weird saying that. “They have homes and families. They don’t need to stay with us anymore.”

  Ril
ey looked taken aback. “I hadn’t thought of that. Are you guys going to split?”

  Gorgeous looked at Beats with her telltale angry-looking expression. Mel knew it meant she was laughing, but the translator added some additional context. Under the laughing was a tinge of sadness.

  “I will stay with you,” Gorgeous said. “I don’t have family and I don’t have a home. That’s why I was in Sha Shahur when Kathor found me. I have nowhere else to go.”

  “Awesome,” Riley said. “I mean, not that you don’t have a family. That’s horrible. I was just afraid you would run away before I got my revenge.” Gorgeous scowl-laughed at him, but Riley continued. “What about you, Beats? Need to get back to school?” Beats apparently attended something equivalent to a university, studying philosophy. He put down his tablet and focused on the others.

  “It’s too late for this semester,” Beats said. He looked down at the floor, and Mel had the sense he was uncomfortable. “I believe I spend far too much time reading books, living inside my head. I’m quite enjoying the adventure of it all. I think, for the moment at least, that I will stay with you.”

  “Yeah!” Riley said, pumping a fist in the air. “That’s what I’m talking about. We’re going to take over this galaxy.”

  “Slow your roll there, Mr. Galactic Domination,” Mel said. “Anna and I have had a few discussions on what to do next.”

  “Funny how you’re always plotting with Anna, but don’t include the rest of us,” Jon said. His voice was quiet; it was the first thing he’d said since Mel and the others had come in the room. Mel had honestly forgotten he was there.

  “I am including the rest of you. Right now,” Mel said. “Next time Anna and I are talking at two am., I’ll be sure to wake you up.”