May 28, 2361 AIA

The Golondrina

Adan Vas stood up and stretched, glancing back at Reyer as he did. Her reader was out, but she wasn’t looking at it. She was staring out the porthole at the empty black of velox.

He put his hand on Lynx’s cold shoulder. “You’ve got this?”

“Got what, Captain?” the bot asked.

Without answering, Vas went down to the main deck. Ciro was laid out across part of the portside bench. His electronics were spread out over the rest of it and taking up some space on the floor as well. He was asleep.

Vas walked along the aisle between Reyer and the middle bench.

He stopped when he got to her. “Hey,” he whispered.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t ask me if I’m all right.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask,” he lied.

“Uh-huh.”

He reached around to the shelf behind her and pulled out his bag. “I was going to ask if you were bored.” He pulled out what he was looking for and replaced the rest. He tapped his head as he sat down on the bench across from her. “Velox can get to you if you’re not careful. That’s why it’s good to have people around to distract you.”

“Don’t you usually only travel with Lynx?”

Vas pulled the collapsing table up the bulkhead and folded it down between them. “Dealing with Lynx can be very distracting.”

From the cockpit they heard, “Sir, I am programmed only to provide service and sound advice based on—”

Reyer said, “Hush, Lynx! Do you want to wake up Ciro? He might decide to work on you.”

The bot looked at where Ciro was lying. “I will do my best to let Master Ciro sleep.”

Reyer looked back down at what Vas was doing. “What’s this?”

Vas smiled. “Well, Alix, this is an Old Earth game known as chess.” He held up a piece. “These little guys are called pawns—”

“Captain Vas, I know what chess is. And where do you get off calling me Alix?”

“You called me Adan.”

“I did not.”

“You did,” Lynx corrected her. He had adjusted the volume of his speaker so it wasn’t quite so jarring. “At oh-five, thirty-four Home Base planet time. Right before you asked him—”

“Thank you, Lynx,” Alix said.

“You’re welcome, Miss Reyer. If there are any other facts you need to reference, allow me to assure you that my memory is infinitely more reliable than a human’s.”

Vas moved his interlaced hands away from his mouth, where they had been hiding his smile. “The command you were looking for is ‘shut up.’ He’s been programmed to respond very quickly to that one.”

“I apologize for my lapse, Captain Vas.”

“Allow me to assure you, I didn’t mind at all, Miss Reyer. It’s your move.”

“General Ito?”

“She stopped by my quarters. She said she doesn’t mind holograms.”

“Do you know how much a real chess set is worth? Especially one that’s hand carved?”

“She must think a lot of you.”

“If it’s for me, then why didn’t she give it to me personally?”

“She must know you pretty well too. Are you going to move?”

Her glare didn’t appear to have any effect on the captain, so she left off and, instead, jumped her white knight over her pawn. She put it down with a click.

“Ah. Send out the knight?” Vas advanced a pawn two spaces.

“And the rest can stay back where they’re already protected.”

Fifteen minutes later, after she had taken yet another of his pieces, Vas hissed, “Stop that!”

“You’re the one who asked me to play, Captain.”

“This isn’t a game—it’s a massacre! You haven’t even tried to get me in check.”

“Then why are you worried?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Because your wholesale slaughter of my pieces is really messing up my plans.”

“Plans are what my enemies think they have before I get there to make things interesting.”

Rather than the one-line quip she was expecting as a retort, Vas leaned back and looked at her. After a long moment, he said, “And you start your game almost exclusively with your knights. That’s interesting.”

For some reason, Reyer felt almost abashed. She felt more exposed now than when she’d been standing in Ito’s quarters in nothing more than her sleeping clothes. She forced herself not to squirm.

“They’re useful pieces.” It wasn’t much, but it filled, what was for her, the awkward silence.

“They are.” Vas leaned forward and used his castle to take out one of the two horsemen of the board-game apocalypse. “But you lose them eventually.”

“That’s fine. They did their job.” Alix used her other knight to remove the castle.

Vas was looking at her again. Her face grew warm as he watched.

A sudden beeping made them both turn to look toward Ciro and his mess of wires and screens.

“I’m up! I’m up!” Ciro gargled through his brain fog.

Vas glanced once more at Alix, then stood up and walked over to his brother.

“What is it?” He squatted down so he could look at the tablet that was producing the beeping noise.

Ciro rubbed his face with an open hand as he sat up. “I hooked into the ship’s sensors and ran a program to search for patterns.”

“In velox? Is that possible?”

“Finding patterns? Possible. Understanding them?…I’m still working on that.” Ciro began tapping on the tablet.

Reyer retrieved a canned coffee from the stash Ciro had ensured was on board and held it out to him. When the can came into his peripheral view, he stopped everything to stare at her in awe. “Marry me, Miss Reyer.”

His brother slapped his arm probably harder than he needed to, but it effectively brought Ciro back to the here and now.

Vas pointed to the screen. “Is that from Base?”

“I think it is.” Ciro cracked the top of the can.

Adan stood up and walked over to the cockpit stairs. “Lynx, take us out of velox.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Ciro set up the other tablets and started hunting around for his headphones.

“There are no habitable planets in range, Captain,” the robot said.

“That’s all right, Lynx. Right here is good enough.”

“Sir, it’s the middle of nowhere in deep space.”

“But it’s the most beautiful bit of nowhere, Lynx,” Reyer shouted. “Take us out, right now, and you’ll see for yourself.”

The robot obeyed. As they came out of velox, the stars came back into sight. Two arms of the galaxy filled their viewport with a glorious double arch. Lynx considered the sweep of tiny lights. “I suppose humans would find it appealing.”

But the humans behind him were too busy looking at their computers to pay any attention.

“Nothing changes,” the bot noted.

Ciro looked up at his brother. “It’s Home Base. It was their last send out to the rest of the Rising.”

Alix sat down on a nearby bench. She grasped the seat so hard her knuckles turned white.

“Twenty ships attacked,” Ciro reported. “Everything was a battleship or smaller.”

Reyer and Vas looked at each other.

“Only twenty?” Vas mouthed.

“They didn’t even have to wipe the servers while it was happening,” Ciro said. “It was over in under an hour.”

“Casualties?” Reyer asked.

Ciro was about to answer, but his brother, who was faintly shaking his head, had a look in his eye that reminded Ciro of airlocks and how empty space really was.

“I…I’m afraid they’re not saying,” Ciro said. “All the evacuation transports made it away without any trouble.”

Alix nodded. That was something.

Ciro went on, “The Base’s structure was badly damaged in the fight.”

“It was never meant to be found,” Vas grumbled, “let alone handle a battle.”

Ciro took off his headset and threw it down on the bench beside him.

“That’s it?” Alix asked.

Ciro pushed the tablet away. “That’s it.” He looked up at his brother again. “Turn and burn is done. The order to recode is out.” He sighed. “That means they’ve done the wipe.”

Adan leaned back on the bulkhead. “General Falk is probably already picking a new home for us.”

“Yeah, but for now we’re on our own.”

“They’re going to make a whole new Home Base because of twenty ships?” Reyer asked.

Adan stood up from the wall. “Ever since the first time—”

“You mean when Rurik betrayed us?”

“Ever since then, the generals have seen the wisdom in not investing too much in things that are supposed to be a secret. The three of them are never on the same planet at one time, and they’re always on the lookout for potential new planets they may want to use.”

Alix went back over to her bench, wrapped herself in a blanket, and sat down.

Vas gave the order for Lynx to drop back into velox and continue on to their destination.

“Do we have one, Captain?”

“One what?”

“A destination, sir.”

Vas sighed as he climbed up to the pilot’s seat. “Always questioning my orders.”

“I’m compelled to, Captain. They occasionally reference questions which haven’t been answered, such as—Where are we going? Why are we doing this? Or, are you sure that’s a good idea, sir?”

“We’ll need a place to go now, Miss Reyer,” Vas said.

“Have Lynx pick one randomly.”

Ciro raised his hand. “Um, can I randomly suggest a warm planet? Maybe something with a beach?”

“It’s not random if you have a reason for wanting it,” Reyer said.

Lynx picked a planet and set their coordinates into the ship’s computer after Vas confirmed it would be acceptable. Once they were in velox and cruising again, Adan went back down to be with his brother and Reyer.

Ciro was gazing up at him with beseeching brown eyes.

“Well,” Adan said, “it’s not cold.”

Ciro swore. “No beaches?”

“Not many.”

“It’s a desert planet, isn’t it? Oh, god. It’s a desert planet. Those things destroy machinery. You know that, right?”

“Relax, Ciro. It’s not a desert planet.” Vas sat back down at the chess board. “Reyer?”

She looked up at him.

“Shall we?” He motioned to the pieces.

Alix rested one finger on the top of her queen. It tilted under the weight. “Why only twenty ships? They didn’t even send a warship.”

Vas watched her without answering.

“Why would the Supremacy send only twenty ships when they’re told the location of one of the major bases for the Uprising?”

“I don’t know, Miss Reyer, but twenty was all it took to destroy it.”

“But would they have known that? I’ll bet it wasn’t so easy the last time.”

“No,” Ciro said, “it wasn’t.”

“They did have a traitor on the base with us,” Vas pointed out. “He could have been giving them information.”

Reyer shouted up to the cockpit. “Lynx!”

“Yes, Miss Reyer?”

“How long was Private Bray working at Home Base?”

“I don’t know, Miss Reyer. I don’t have access to all the personnel files.”

Vas and Reyer turned to Ciro.

“What?” he said.

“You haven’t gotten around to that particular breach of privacy and regulations?” his brother asked.

“Not yet. But! I do have it around…here…somewhere.” He poked around his machines. “Ah ha!” He held another tablet aloft.

“Why do you have the personnel files on your working tablet?”

“I hate wipes. Do you have any idea how long it takes me to rebuild a system from scratch?” A moment later, Ciro said, “Bray was with us for almost three years.”

“Was there any sign of a breach or any activity that might show he was working for the Supremacy?” Alix asked.

“None, and believe me, I would have seen it.”

She turned to Adan. “The Supremacy had a plant on Home Base for three years and nothing happened?”

“Not until you showed up,” Adan said.

“Doesn’t that seem strange to you? How could my location be more important to them than General Ito’s? Or Jordan’s?”

“We don’t know, Reyer.”

“Vas, we have to find out.”