“What the hell is going on?”
I am back in the cockpit of our Syldrathi shuttle again, floating at the edge of a storm of dark matter, my ears still ringing with the crack of the gunshot that killed me. Instead of replaying the moment of my death over in my head, I focus on Lieutenant Kim’s face as it appears on the monitor. I had been hoping she would take a different approach this loop, and as she opens comms for the tenth time, I realize she is ready to talk.
Pleasing.
“Hello, Lieutenant. I have been expecting you.”
Her pause is so long that if I could not see her shifting slightly on my monitor, I would think our comms had cut out.
“I can’t tell if you’re kidding,” she says eventually.
“I hear that with remarkable frequency.”
More silence.
“Open the airlock,” she says. “I’m coming over.”
Scarlett and Finian reach the bridge, breathless, having sprinted up from the engine room. Catching the end of the conversation, Finian leans in to study the lieutenant onscreen. “You’re only coming over if you agree not to shoot anyone. I’ve died ten times already today, and I’m in no mood.”
The lieutenant blinks, brow creasing. “Ten? I count nine.”
“We died on the way here, too.”
“On the way here from the future.” Her tone is dubious.
Scarlett leans in beside Finian. “See you soon, Lieutenant.” Kim cuts the connection, leaving the three of us to stare at each other. The impossibility of what we are experiencing is not lost on any of us.
“I don’t like this,” Finian mutters. “I don’t like her.”
“Me neither,” Scarlett agrees. “But our ship is dead in the water, so we’re not getting anywhere until we convince her we’re not a threat.”
Fin looks at Scarlett, voice soft. “… You sure you’re okay?”
Scarlett blinks. “Yeah, I’m okay. I mean, okay as I can be, considering what’s going on here… .”
“You …” Fin swallows. “You got shot.”
“I’m fine, Fin.” Scarlett smiles gently, touches his hand. “I promise. You got shot too, you know.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “But I didn’t have to watch.”
They gaze at each other for a long moment, and the silence eventually grows heavy enough for me to feel compelled to break it.
“Your medallion.” I nod to the small crystal around Scarlett’s neck. “The diamond reacted after the quantum sail was hit out in the storm.”
“Yeah,” she replies, recalling herself to the business at hand. “But it’s not diamond. Fin figured out it’s Eshvaren crystal.”
I stare at the gem, eyes narrowing. “Interesting …”
“Why did it glow like that?”
“I do not know,” I murmur, my mind now racing. “But it must be of significance. Several of our gifts from Admiral Adams and Battle Leader de Stoy have proved vital up to this point. The cigarillo case that saved Kal’s life. The inscription on your necklace, telling us to go with the plan to disable the Eshvaren Weapon. It is as if the Aurora commanders knew what would happen to us. Their actions could even be interpreted as having guided us to this point.”
Fin cocks his head, unconvinced. “Obviously something’s up with the gifts. But guiding us? That’s a stretch, Zil. They gave me a damn pen.”
Scarlett nods to my golden hoops. “And you just got earrings.”
WHUNNGG.
Our shuttle rocks as a towline strikes the hull. Another follows.
WHUNNGG.
Fin rolls his eyes. “Guess we better go down and let Lieutenant Psychopath in. I wonder what new and interesting way she’ll kill us this time.”
“You must be polite, Finian,” I warn. “Her demeanor may be overly aggressive, but Lieutenant Kim is a critical component in all this.”
Scarlett raises one eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”
“I take it you did not notice her callsign.”
Now Finian blinks at me. “Huh?”
“Her callsign. A nickname used by her fellow pilots. It was stenciled on the wing of her fighter. It is also painted on the helmet she wears.”
“I was too busy looking at the pistol in her hand to notice the helmet on her head,” Scarlett admits. “What was it?”
I reach up to touch the earrings, the gift left for me in the Dominion Repository. The small golden birds dangling from the hoops, their wings spread, talons flashing in the dim light.
“Her callsign is Hawk.”
• • • • •
This time when the airlock disengages, all three of us are waiting for her out in the open. Lieutenant Kim doesn’t have her weapon drawn, though one hand rests on the grip. She stands framed in the doorway, reaching up slowly to unbuckle her mask and remove her helmet.
She is perhaps in her early twenties, and I believe my assessment that she is of East Asian descent is correct. Her features are symmetrical, conventionally attractive, although I imagine that for some, her stern expression would detract from the effect.
She is not tall.
“Okay, let’s try this again,” says Scarlett. “My name is Scarlett Jones. This is Zila Madran, and this is Finian de Karran de Seel.”
“And before you start shooting again, some of my best friends are Terrans,” Finian informs her. “All my best friends, actually.”
“Lieutenant Nari Kim,” our guest says slowly.
“Nice to meet you,” Scarlett smiles. “And thanks for not killing us.”
“You’re welcome,” she deadpans. “So, who wins the war?”
Scarlett tilts her head. “… What?”
“If you people are from the future,” Kim says, obviously still dubious. “Who wins? Us?” She nods at Finian. “Or the bleach-heads?”
“Nobody ever wins a war,” I reply. “But the Terrans and Betraskans will sign a peace treaty in—”
“Wait, wait,” Scarlett says. “Should we be talking about stuff like this?”
“… Why wouldn’t we?” Fin asks.
She glances at the lieutenant. “What if we change the future?”
“That only happens in bad science fiction novels, right?”
“There is no precedent for what we are experiencing,” I say. “Or at least, not one of which we are aware. It is difficult to know the ramifications of our actions, and virtually impossible to calculate the effects our presence in this time may have on future events. But given the gifts Aurora Command gave us, I believe it is best to assume we are supposed to be here.”
“Maybe the future we know only exists because of the things we do here,” Finian suggests. “Maybe we have to tell her this stuff.”
“Still here,” Lieutenant Kim reminds us.
“Sorry,” Scarlett smiles. “We’re trying to wrap our heads around all this, too. Believe us, we’re almost as lost as you are. But in our time, the Betraskans are Terra’s closest allies. We just left a battle back in 2380, and one of the last things we saw before all … this”—she waves about us—“was the Betraskan fleet showing up to protect Earth.”
I can see the lieutenant wants to ask more questions about our timeline, but she holds her tongue, and for that I am grateful. It is not efficient to think of what we have left behind. Who we have left behind.
“So what the hell is all”—she mimics Scarlett’s wave—“this, then?”
“That is precisely what we are attempting to determine.”
She looks me over, eyes lingering on mine. “So attempt. Because as far as I’m concerned, it’s still even odds you’re all bleach-head spies.”
“Listen, Dirtgirl,” Fin begins. “Maybe you wanna give the blea—”
“Friends here,” Scarlett chimes, patting Fin’s arm and smiling brightly at the lieutenant. “All friends, remember?”
“There are two possibilities,” I say. “Either a catalyst event occurred where we were, throwing us back in time and creating this anomaly …”
“Like being directly in the path of a massive ancient psychic superweapon as it was fired?” Scarlett asks.
“… or the catalyst event occurred here,” I continue, “drawing us back to this moment in time.”
“Potentially both,” Finian murmurs.
I nod. “What have you been experiencing, Lieutenant Kim?”
Our guest considers the question. I am not a good judge of emotion, but it seems to me that although she is still wary, some of the tension has momentarily left the air. She is at least attempting to cooperate for now.
“I’m out flying patrol six minutes ago when you suddenly show up on my scopes,” she says. “We talk, I blast you, everything resets. We don’t talk, I blast you, everything resets. I take you over to the station, you get shot, everything resets. Every time you die, I end up back exactly where I was six minutes ago.”
My mind is settling, and I realize that this sense of comfort comes from having a problem to solve. This is something I know how to do. I will gather data. I will analyze. It will be good to be busy.
“What was happening here six minutes ago?”
The lieutenant chews her lip. Even to me, it is obvious she is reluctant, distrustful. But finally she speaks. “The station was running a test. There was some kind of … power fluctuation. I saw a sphere of dark light, thousands of klicks across, engulfing my ship. All my instruments went haywire. And when it cleared … your ship was right there.”
“What kind of test?” I ask.
Scarlett nods. “What does this station actually do, Lieutenant?”
Lieutenant Kim looks around us, and for the first time, she shows a hint of the panic she must be feeling. “Hell if I know. Classified Terran military ops.”
“It seems intelligence gathering must be our first course of action,” I declare. “If we arrived at the precise moment this test was being conducted, it is a reasonable assumption the test may have precipitated said arrival. We must determine this station’s purpose.”
“How?” Fin asks. “Last time we went over there, they shot us on sight.”
“Maybe we could talk to them?” Scarlett offers. “I mean, if they’re experiencing this time loop too …”
“Negative,” Kim says, shaking her head. “I don’t think anyone on the station has any clue this is happening. The first few times I reset, before comms dropped, I radioed Glass Slipper asking for instructions. I got the same responses every time. Word for word. They acted like nothing was wrong. I mean, aside from the core breach and whatever else is going on over there right now.”
“Dunno what you expected,” Fin says. “You tethered yourselves to a DM storm chasing quantum pulse hits. In case I wasn’t clear before, that’s like wading into a pen full of Mondorian valshins and unzipping your pants.”
He is met with three blank stares.
“No? You don’t have … Well, let’s just say it’s inadvisable.”
Scarlett pouts in thought, looking at Kim. “If our arrival caused all this, and your ship was the only thing near us, that might explain why you’re stuck in the loop with us while nobody else knows it’s happening.”
“Huh,” Kim says, tilting a glance at Scarlett that suggests surprise that she has made such a perceptive point. But it is a sensible supposition.
“We must know more,” I declare. “Knowledge is key. We have twenty-eight minutes until that second quantum pulse we witnessed hits the sail, and then the station, which may disable vital components within. And if the station core is breaching, it is only a matter of time before the station itself is disabled. We should proceed.”
“With what?” asks Lieutenant Kim, wary once more.
“With establishing the facts,” I reply. “The precipitant appears constant, but without further data, the persistent nature of the temporal anomaly cannot be assumed to be without a rate of decay.”
The lieutenant wears an expression that is familiar to me, though I have not experienced it as often lately. It means she has no idea what I am talking about. She looks at Scarlett, who looks at Finian.
Finian translates. “She means that since we don’t know what kicked off the loop, we don’t know if it’ll keep going forever. We might run out of time.”
“Well, let’s get moving,” Kim says. “Do you have spacesuits?”
“I’m taking it you have an idea for getting us aboard?” Scarlett asks.
“Depends,” Lieutenant Kim says. “Are you EVA-certified?”
“Some of us more than others,” our Face replies, wry. “Fin’ll help me. He’s great in zero gee.”
“You have no idea,” Finian grins.
Lieutenant Kim studies Finian for a moment, then looks away, as if she does not wish to remind herself she is assisting a Betraskan. I assume her military training has taught her to trust her instincts, to deal with high-pressure situations while keeping a clear head. With no viable alternative explanation, she seems prepared to believe what her own senses are telling her for now. But I admit to mild admiration that she is taking this situation so well.
The lieutenant looks at me, and I realize I am staring.
I avert my gaze, dipping my head so my hair tumbles over my eyes.
“The whole station will be on high alert,” she warns. “The test malfunction was less than twenty minutes ago. They’ll be wondering if it was sabotage, and they will shoot you on sight. My ship’s got a cargo hold, but it’s gonna be a hell of a tight squeeze, so I hope you three like each other. A lot.”
I see Finian and Scarlett exchange a quick glance.
“I’m going to take you to a tertiary airlock,” Kim continues. “If we’re lucky, security’s going to be too busy with the core breach to notice.”
“And if we’re unlucky?” Scarlett asks.
Fin musters a thin smile. “Eleventh time’s the charm?”
• • • • •
Despite the cramped conditions of the fighter’s cargo hold, we reach the station quickly, and it is a simple EVA to the airlock, which is open to space and ready to receive supplies. Scarlett clearly finds it trying—even after we are safely tucked inside, she holds Finian’s hand.
At least, I think that is the reason.
Lieutenant Kim has instructed us to wait inside the airlock. She will dock her fighter and report to her superiors. Then, when she can slip away, she will equalize the pressure within the airlock before admitting us to the station, hopefully unobserved.
We wait in silence. I can see the vast, roiling blackness through the airlock viewport, lit by momentary flashes of energy—sullen mauve, laced with deeper darkness. I do my best to ignore the way the storm makes my skin crawl. Its power is almost inconceivable, and the thought that the scientists aboard this station sought to tame it makes me … uneasy.
I can admit to myself that the sensation I experience when the outer doors begin to close is pure relief. We must ensure we are standing on the ground when gravity kicks in so we do not fall. I glide down to take my place beside Finian, Scarlett on his other side, to offer him support. The sensation of gravity reasserting itself is unpleasant for him.
A green light comes on beside the airlock’s inner doors to indicate pressure has equalized, and we remove our helmets as the doors slide open. But instead of Lieutenant Kim, we are confronted by three Terran soldiers with SECURITY stamped across their breastplates.
A small part of my mind notes with bemusement that they are wearing camouflage. They are in space. What use is the camouflage?
They raise their weapons.
“Oh, come on,” says Finian. “You’ve gotta be—”
BLAM.