Stormblood, стр. 6
Compass. If the greater galaxy has a capital city, this is it. Home to six hundred million and counting. Between the spikes of ships, the mammoth asteroid was barnacled with entry docks, spaceports, berths, dockyards, array towers, mooring gantries, hangars, surface facilities and hubs that were home to scores of defence weaponry. Gigantic black scorches scarred Compass’ rocky body like blistering skin moles. Traces of Harvest plasma artillery. We swooped closer to the pockmarked asteroid’s surface, the tall skyscrapers of slag whipping by.
Six hundred million people, and my little brother was one of them, down there somewhere. We hadn’t spoken in years. He’d cut me out of his life so thoroughly that when I ended up on Compass after the war I didn’t even try to find him. Losing him had been hard to bear. Hoping that time might somehow have changed things between us would have been harder still. But caring for someone means doing what’s best for them, even when it hurts, even when it scars.
But that didn’t mean I’d forgotten how we’d lain in our shared bed as children, my brother’s little body pressed against mine for warmth as our parents’ arguments bounced around our tiny apartment. Or covering his ears when our father hit our mother, each strike louder and louder. Or wrapping a protective arm around Artyom’s chest, the drumbeat of his heart under my palm. Or my sister Kasia leaning towards me the following morning and whispering so she wouldn’t wake our father up. Promise me, Vak. Promise me you’ll look out for Artyom.
No. Nothing good ever came walking down that path. He had his life, I had mine. And judging by present company, mine was about to get a hell of a lot more complicated.
The Kaiji ship caught my eye as I looked up. The aliens’ spacecraft was elongated and angular, a bullet-shaped chunk of dark, electric-blue ice, the hull sweeping forward in great sharp curves. It hovered like a sleeping monster in the dark of space, although its long-range sensors were surely watching us, along with every heat signature within five klicks. A warning not to approach blossomed on our chainship’s forward viewport. Our ship applied course-correction, veering away accordingly.
‘They’re here for peace talks, thrashing out some issues before they join Harmony and the Common at large,’ Kowalski said when I asked about it. It came as no surprise that Harmony was expanding their reach, as all galaxy-wide governments are wont to do. Wouldn’t be the first or last spacefaring alien species to join their ranks.
‘Sokolav’s not in charge of this outpost, is he?’ I asked casually. It’d be interesting to see the guy who’d first roped me into Harmony.
Kowalski’s eyes glazed over, her vision obscured by datastreams and icons from her shib overlay as she performed a quick search. ‘No,’ she said, the readouts vanishing. ‘He’s long gone. Missing.’
I leaned forward against my restraints. ‘How long?’
‘Seven years. He vanished a few days before Harvest surrendered.’
Harmony’s outpost had come into view, sprawling steel limbs locked into the asteroid’s surface like a starfish clutching a cosmic-sized rock. We docked in the auxiliary hangar and promptly disembarked before being ushered through a stream of gently lit hallways. It was the same as every other Harmony Special Service Command outpost. The same guards shelled in the same polished armour, same blur of glass offices and high-tech laboratories, same technicians and analysts poring over flexiscreens, same stench of lime-scented bleach. I picked up a few curious looks as I was brought through into a sparsely decorated office with dark marble flooring. Sitting in front of a viewport overlooking the asteroid’s pockmarked curve was the Station Commander. Her dark hair was tied back in a severe bun, away from her pointed face, and her eyes were ice cubes rolled in ashes. She seemed to have adopted a permanent cynical expression, enamelled by long years of service.
She sat behind a desk of rugged black stone, typing away on a virtual keyboard. Spanish text crawled across the mid-air screen like neon liquid. A cup of coffee sat on the desk next to her. Her name, SSC Commander Juliet Kindosh, popped up in my augmented vision moments before the screen folded away, as if being tucked back into some invisible pocket.
As Kindosh’s gaze skimmed over us, Kowalski stood a little straighter behind me, her hands held tight behind her back. Finally Kindosh turned towards me. ‘Sit,’ she said. Even in a single word, her thick Compass accent hit home.
I almost gave a polite bow of my head, but caught myself. We weren’t on New Vladi. It wouldn’t mean anything to them here. Forearm shakes and smiles were the standard greeting on Compass. Kowalski’s men were armed and present, but they didn’t file into their corners as gunrunners usually do. They remained close by her side in a protective posture.
‘You can take that thing off,’ Kindosh said, staring at my visor. ‘I’m not talking to my own reflection.’
I seethed quietly behind my helmet. I don’t take well to orders. Especially not from Harmony types, and especially when they’re about my armour. But this was her station. Her office. Her rules. She had the power to disarm me, and there’s nothing people like her like more than using their power.
I took my time retrieving my palmerlog, finding the right switch and ordering my armour to release me. The chest and arms plates cracked and peeled apart, opening with a whirl of gears and servomechanisms. The air warm and muggy against my skin as I tugged the helmet off and stepped out of my suit.