Bury Me Standing Up

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

For the first time in my life I wish that were true.

The noise over the intercom is growing so loud that I’m forced to hit mute, or become paralyzed with fear.

"Fyadh!"

Finally I see the bright reflection of his suit against the darkness.

“I'm coming Tyson, hang on!"

My breaths are harsh inside the helmet as I launch myself off the end of the airlock. The man is flailing, doing nothing to make my life easier, but at last I manage to catch the end of his snapped tether. I hit my tether lock and gasp as we both come to an abrupt stop.

I don’t want to look, but it’s the flashing light that at last pulls my gaze towards the fleet.

Or what’s left of it. There’s nothing between me and the truth, now. The ships are broken to pieces, falling into the nearby nebula with spectacular bursts of blue and green. What isn’t being consumed by the cosmic gasses is flying out into the wild expanse of space.

A small object floats overhead, and as soon as I realize what it is I have to swallow back a rising swell of nausea.

This shouldn’t be possible. We were granted amnesty and protection by the people of the Aquarius Corridor, and have been stationed at the edge of their system for the last six months in perfect harmony.

The question of who could have done this races hot through my mind. One thing I know for certain – Whoever they were had just declared war on the Gypsies, and we wouldn’t fail to respond in kind.

So long as we survive this long enough to call for a meeting of The Clans.

My head snaps up at the sound of an alarm and I spy a piece of hull heading our way. My right mech eye automatically brings up the relative velocity, but I blink it aside. I don’t need to know exactly how fast it’s flying to understand that if it hits us we'll be cut to pieces.

I hit retract on my belt, and we're slowly reeled back to the ship. I don't let down my guard until we're back inside the airlock and I've closed the blast doors behind us.

Tyson’s unusually quiet. Either he’s been struck silent by the same horror as I have, or he’s fainted. I tug his body towards me and spin him around so I can see through his face shield.

One look at the man’s slack, bearded face confirms that he’s out cold.

It’s probably better this way. My job’s already difficult enough as it is without a panicking librarian on my hands.

I secure his snapped tether to my belt before shoving off toward the lounge. The Library’s air was evacuated minutes after the first explosion rocked the fleet, when the wave of radiation was picked up by our ship’s sensors. Why Tyson was outside the airlock in the first place, or how his tether snapped, are questions for another time. I’m only glad I happened to hear him, or else who knows what might have happened. He could have been flattened by a piece of shrapnel, or worse, been doomed to die in the vacuum of space like all the others.

Like I might have been if I’d been on my usual rotation on the The Conservatory.

Multiple merry, laughing faces float through my mind, but I ruthlessly push them aside.

There’s a time for mourning, and a time for raising hell, Fyadh. But there’s never enough time for both.

I clench my jaw.

As a security officer for Clan Khalis, one of the first things drilled into my head during training was that the lore each Gypsy clan carries with them is a sacred legacy, and it is my responsibility to prioritize the preservation of that legacy above all else. We may have lost countless lives today, but our way of life is still secure. 95% of The Clan’s original written history is on board The Library of Khalis. Of all the ships to survive an attack, The Library was the most ideal.

I catch sight of frenzied activity though every doorway as librarians lock down the books. Somewhere inside my journals are being tucked safely into a drawer, the story inside of them as of yet unfinished. When this is over, countless other journals are going to be pulled out of circulation and put into the archives for the historians to write in the final entries.

Died: 23.07.2223. Location: Helix Nebula. Cause of death…

As of yet unknown.

I switch to discrete comms for the security channel. “Jerri! Do you copy?”

The feedback whine is almost painful.

“Fyadh,” Jerri’s voice crackles angrily. “I’ve been tryin’ t’get a hold of ya for the last fifteen minutes! Where t’hell have you been?”

“There was a man overboard," I answer tersely. "What have I missed?”

“It was a coordinated attack. We received a strange transmission moments before first alarm. Thomas and Shaley were dispatched to the engine room soon after.”

“And?”

“They found a pack of explosives tucked underneath the fuel injectors. It looks as though whoever was sent to do the job miswired the explosive to the detonator.”

“You mean…”

“We were saved by a saboteur’s shoddy work.”

A chill slithers down my spine.

“I doubt they’re still on board, but regardless, I want to do a proper sweep of the ship. We’ve detained the Maori scholars and their guardsmen in their rooms, but a few of the security officers are still missing.”

“Who?”

“Captain Heketoro and one of his lower ranking officers, Nikau.”

Captain Heketoro. A large, wild-eyed, tattooed warrior. I knew the man in passing, but I hadn’t spent enough time around him to guess what his next move might be.

“What’s their ship’s status?”

“Gerdha is keeping it on lockdown.”

“Once I'm done here, I’ll find them.”

“Aye. May the good saints protect you.”

With a heave I push off the wall and double my speed down the hall. There’s not enough time to do anything more than strap Tyson in to his station and make sure his oxygen tank is full before I turn my full attention to the task at hand.

There are only ten security officers on board The Library of Khalis, including myself. That means there's only one of us for every deck of the ship, which will make it difficult to conduct an effective search.

Taking a deep breath, I reactivate ship wide comms. The initial shock of the attack seems to have passed, and protocol has kicked in. Instead of screams there’s now a cacophony of intense shipwide communication. I close my eyes and listen to the chatter, focusing on any hint that may lead me to the Maori still on the loose.

“-those doors closed! We need to-”

“Where’s Haley?”

“I don’t know she was right behind me!”

“-ori knocked me over on his way-”

Ori?

I hone in on the frequency and isolate it.

“...demanded to know where his rocket boots were, and I reiterated that he wasn’t allowed to have them while on The Library because of the books. He said if I didn’t tell him where they were he’d stun me.”

“So you told him?”

“What would you have done? I had no idea what his Maori tech would have done to my circuitry ....”

I smile grimly.

At least one of the security officers is heading towards impound.

I use the wall grips to jettison myself towards the stairs. All the staircases were built in a spiral, with just enough space in the middle to make room for a good sized person. I flip around so I’m going headfirst down the center, my head swiveling from side to side as I pull myself past each level and come up with a plan of attack.

Impound is on the second floor, right inside the visitor entry airlock before the docking bay. There isn’t much between the stairs and the airclock, just a wide, circular lounge, so I’ll be horribly exposed. But then again, so will the Maori.

At least I have my stun beads, and I never miss.

My heads up display is activated with a thought as I approach the lower levels. I bring up the targeting system, and load a bead into the right wrist launcher. The door slides open at my approach, and the security officer and I immediately lock eyes from across the room.

It’s Heketoro.

We fire at the same time, but his shot goes wide. Pieces of the doorframe pelt my outstretched arm as I watch my stun bead ricochet harmlessly off his suit in a flash of green.

Body shield.

I should have anticipated that. I begin to pull out my bola as I push through the doorway, but before I get the chance to remove it I feel the trap activate. I snarl as I freeze in midair, every piece of metal running through my body immobilized by the magnetic field. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to turn my head, and I'm just in time to see the boy Nikau reach towards his vambrace.

A bolt of electricity fires up from the floor, and the smell of hot metal fills my nostrils. Something in the shock must have fried my circuitry because as my augmentations shut down one by one, memories I'd thought were long forgotten flash to the forefront of my mind.

Flames rising around me as I watch my mother crash through a burning floor, and nightmares of searing heat that wake me up screaming in a hospital bed. Adjusting to the weight of my new metal appendages as I struggled through weeks of therapy. Pretending to sleep as I listen to my family whisper about the expense of raising a cyborg, then being visited days later by a disfigured woman introduced as a Gypsy.

“What’s your name, little one?”

“Fyadh.”

“Hello Fyadh, my name’s Bonnie.”

She gives me a crooked smile, stretching the scars that consume the entire lower half of her face.

“You’re part of Clan Khalis now, and we’re going to take care of you.”

A tear falls unbidden down my cheek as darkness creeps in. The memory of her smile is stuck in a feedback loop until my mind processor cuts off, and I see nothing at all.

I'm lost, floating alone in a silent world until I hear a voice.

Rebooting system in 3,2,1...

I jolt awake with a gasp.

Nikau is sitting across from me, finger posed over his vambrace.

“Try anything funny and I won't hesitate to put you under again.”

It felt as if I'd only been out for a few seconds, but it's clear that I'm no longer aboard The Library of Khalis. When I try to move my limbs are nonresponsive, but at least my head is still under my control. I look down to find I'm strapped into a jump seat by a thin black rope.

If my augmentations were online I'd be able to break out of it in seconds, but since they aren't, I'm stuck where I am.

For now.

I strain to look out the porthole. My mind races as I catch sight of a blue and gray surface stretched out below. All the planets along the Aquarius Corridor look alike, so there's no way for me to tell exactly where we are without seeing a chart. One thing I know for certain is that it can't be the Maori homeworld. Besides being located on the outer edge of the system, lightspeed is prohibited within the corridor, and there's no way I was unconscious for ten hours.

The fan within my control panel begins to whir softly.

Full system reboot in one minue.

I tilt my head back to look at Nikau. He's shifting in his seat, finger inching closer to the button that will undoubtedly send another shock through my system. A black swirling mask of tattoos covers a majority of his stern mahogany features, but it isn’t enough to hide the worry in his eyes.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask.

“We don't fancy being locked up for a crime we didn't commit.”

“Running will only make you look guilty.”

“Your captain already believes we're the culprits.”

I look toward's the helm at the sound of Captain Heketoro's deep voice. His massive shoulders spill out around the edges of the pilot’s seat, along with a dark halo of curly hair.

“I was listening to the comm chatter. There was evidence that the explosive belongs to the Maori royal guard, and I need time to find out the truth. I can’t do that when I’m being detained in a Gypsy prison.”

My prosthetic fingers start to twitch against my leg.

Full recovery of augmentation functionality in thirty seconds.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To Rehua, to call for a meeting of truce.”

I would have laughed, if I had the energy. “My entire family was just slaughtered in cold blood. The time of truce is over. When The Gypsies return it will be in full force. Be it yours or anothers, blood will be spilled until every last life has been avenged.”

“But we were on board at the time of the attack!” Nikau answers angrily. “Why would we risk the lives of our own people?”

“Maybe someone considered a handful of academics and their bodyguards acceptable losses. Or not. After all, The Library was the only ship in the fleet that survived the attack.”

It isn’t until I’ve said the words out loud that things start to fit together.

"The explosive could have been miswired to make the lack of detonation look like an accident."

The boy swears loudly. My heads-up display flickers to life as a warm surge of power flows out of my internal processor.

Full functionality has been restored.

I load a disc into my launcher as I bare my teeth in a painful smile. "We were also the only ship that accepted a delegation from Papatūānuku today. That seems like more than a coincidence.”

“I know how it looks but — !”

“Leave it, Nikau. The girl just lost everyone she loves. Now is not the time to call for reason.”

I hate the tone of pity in the Captain’s voice, but he’s right.

Now is not the time for reason.

I lunge at Nikau, easily snapping the rope binding me like it's nothing more than a thread. The heel of my palm connects with his jaw, but not fast enough. The edge of the rope is still wrapped around my right wrist, and a surge of sparks makes the arm dead up to my elbow. It's my turn to swear as I load a bead into my left hand launcher, but by the time I fire at the Captain his body shield has already activated.

The disc ricochets off his arm and sparks fly from the control panel. The ship violently tilts, sending me across the cabin. As I slam against the wall the sound of the engines falter, and klaxon alarms blare. The ship is shaking so violently that I can’t renew my attack on the Captain, even if I want to.

I can hear him struggling to maintain control of the ship, but one look out the window confirms that we’ve been caught by the gravitational pull of the planet below, and are already being drawn toward the surface.

Flames envelop the outer hull as we enter the atmosphere. The shriek of metal wars with the alarms, and just when I think the ship is going to tear itself apart, the shuddering stops. The flames outside have been replaced by a violent slash of rain, and a bright flash illuminates the cabin.

"Hold onto something!" The Captain shouts over a deafening crash of thunder.

I manage to heave myself onto a seat, and have only just stuffed my dead arm into the shoulder straps when we start to spin. I'm still fumbling with the clip when we make contact.

Then everything goes black.