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It didn’t take much to know that all the other recruits were laughing at him. They were polite with it, hiding snickers behind their hands, mouths contorting to seal laughs inside their throats, but the crowd was thrumming with an antsy jitter.
Like schoolchildren, Song Lan thought as he stepped up to the podium.
He bowed deeply to the general who called his name. The badge hanging from the front of his freshly ironed uniform swung with the motion. As he righted, the sign of his family lineage thumped heavy against his chest. Turning on his heel, Song Lan faced the flags hanging beside the general and saluted, arm at the perfect angle. Practiced.
2 seconds for the Lunar Mining Coalition of Xing. 4 seconds for the Himinn Union.
He then marched to his designated handler, the one who would deliver him to his assigned post, as the general called out the name of the next Coalition recruit and their placement in the Union’s army. The older man nodded at him and leaned over.
His low, quiet voice rumbled, “Don’t mind them, son. The Inga squad has many fine fighters. They’re a scrappy lot and stronger for it.”
Song Lan nodded solemnly at him as another recruit was called forward.
‘Scrappy’ was one way to describe the reputation the Inga squad had managed to cultivate. His older brothers brought so many stories home with them from the front lines, and most of the time the butt of the joke landed on someone from Inga. ‘It’s a squad where criminals fight each other for an honorable death,’ his father had said once.
Song Lan didn’t need to check the back of the room to know his father wasn’t there. None of his family would be standing in the crowd, earnestly listening for the placement of their son or brother, hoping for the prestige of a front-line placement or the safety of an administrative assignment. His enrollment was not for honor. It wasn’t for the meager paycheck or chance of earning a medal.
No, it was an apology.
The journey to his post was swift and silent. The craft that carried the two men rumbled across one side of the solar system to the other to use the local rumdoa gateway. Familiar star patterns stretched and snapped as the ship was catapulted away from Xing, away from the dozens of moons that made up the Coalition, away from the only piece of space that Song Lan knew.
It took five jumps before the craft slowed and descended upon a medium-sized planet.
The winds whipped up handfuls of sand and twirled it around their legs as Song Lan stepped out into the warm, dry air and followed his handler into an ancient looking building. The sand-blasted walls of the Inga squad outpost shone a sickly yellow with the planet’s two suns peeking up over the horizon, and the metal door’s hinges crunched with the sand caught in between. An old android model sat near the door whirred to life at their entry.
A tinny voice walked him through a brief physical, a mental health assessment, and took his fingerprints. Then, gave him several vaccines. As the android handed Song Lan a heavy backpack with basic supplies, the handler asked, “Well, Lou, don’t hold out on us. Where’s the boy getting placed?”
The android tilted its head down, pausing for a moment. Its long fingers creaked as they open and closed again, and a loud whir kicked up inside its metal chest.
“Soldier Song will join the Yi team for the Mohashagor mission.”
The older man frowned and said, “This young man is one of Xing’s finest, He’s had education most of the other recruits could only dream about. Shouldn’t he be on recon duty or with the research team?”
The whirring sound came again as the android gestured in a way common to the Southern Quadrant, a movement that suggested embarrassment, before opening its mouth to say, “The Mohashagor gunner demanded a change in post that was granted by Squad Leader Espinoza. Their ship requires three living to steer, and Soldier Song has a record of good shooting skills. The Mohashagor mission priority has increased by three points. Therefore, the need for a fully functional team is pressing.”
With a nod, the handler turned to Song Lan and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. His eyes were firm but gentle as his fingers squeezed briefly. He clicked his tongue, swore softly in a language Song Lan wasn’t familiar with, and switched back to Al-Mogg, “Remember what I told you. These men are rough around the edges, but a good lot. Your mission is an important one, and takes priority over everything else.”
Song Lan nodded and slung the backpack over his shoulders. He adjusted the strap to not disturb his badge, then followed the man as he waved goodbye to the android and walked through to the back of the outpost building. Song Lan turned to offer his own wave before he stepped back out into the blustering sand, but the android had already started to power down, its head hanging limply to the side.
The handler once again didn’t speak as he drove them both in a hover cart past the sandy dunes. He wouldn’t have been heard over the sound of sand pelting the windshield, but Song Lan appreciated the lapse in conversation anyway.
The android was right that he was well known for his shooting skill. As a child, his older brothers taught him how to knock things over with bows and arrows, a sling-shot, a yam cannon, and then various kinds of phasers. His mother had been furious, but with thirteen other children to manage and political marriages to sort out, she never could keep weapons out of Song Lan’s hands. When he went through school, there was a long-range weapon club that he never missed a day of – it would have looked badly on his family, but he also really enjoyed it.
The weapons and the shooting, that is. Song Lan never really got comfortable talking with his siblings let alone his classmates. Everyone back in Xing knew him by face and name, so what else did he even have to say? The miners, their wives, the kids, they all had their preconceived thoughts about him. Why prove them right or wrong?
The hover craft soared over a large mound of sand, encouraged into the air by a strong gust of wind, and the two men arrived on a small camp in a shower of tiny, red grains.
There were two tents, one smaller and the other much larger both patchworked and trembling, next to a medium-sized ship. It was an older model. Not one that Song Lan was familiar with but one that looked sturdy and well-built. Red dust caked the craft but the joints seemed fairly clear, as if someone brushed them out from time to time. Song Lan caught a glimpse of a pair of legs dangling out the top of the craft as they fiddled with something inside an open panel.
The handler stepped into the center of the tiny camp and called out “Yi Team, circle up. I brought a gift!”
The soldier half in the ship waved a hand at them and shouted back something unintelligible. Before the handler could call out again though, one of the tent flaps moved and a striking man stepped out. He was tall and lean with a tight bun wrapped at the base of his neck. Large reflective glasses covered his eyes which immediately perked Song Lan’s interest.
Most soldiers had surgery to adjust any eye deficiencies before service, yet these clearly looked medical, perhaps some sort of visual aid.
The man greeted him with a soft, “Welcome to the Dust Bowl. You must be our new recruit.” He smiled brightly, seemingly unaffected as a strong gust of wind blew past. “My name is Xiao Xingchen. Please call me Xingchen.”
They saluted each other as was expected in the Union army, then Xiao Xingchen turned towards the ship, cupped his hands together, and called out, “Yang-yang, don’t be anti-social!”
He said the words in Ratatosk, a language common in the Eastern Quadrant, but Song Lan still understood. The Lunar Coalition miners came from all walks of life, bringing with them languages, foods, and traditions from all across the vast Union. He knew a good handful of languages just by way of hearing them spoken in the markets and in their education center, but he also studied many of the most commonly spoken languages as a child which was expected of his station.
‘Yang-yang’ pulled himself out of the ship panel with exaggerated effort and smoothly repelled down to the ground. His gait had a swagger to it as he lazily saluted first the handler and then Song Lan. His grin was lopsided, almost mean-looking as he said, “He looks like he’s never shot a gun in his life.”
Xiao Xingchen hushed him before switching back to Al-Mogg, “This is our mechanic, Xue Yang. We are both,” he looked intently in Xue Yang’s direction and then back to Song Lan. “Happy to have you join the team!”
Xue Yang shrugged even as Song Lan saluted him in greeting.
The handler reached out to give Xue Yang’s shoulder a quick squeeze. In Ratatosk, he said, “You’re stuck with this one, Soldier Yang. Squad Leader Espinoza is patient, but even a Hrafn monk would tire of your antics.” He laughed with an affection that surprised Song Lan and continued, “This one is steady and reliable with a good upbringing. Treat him well and don’t make me come back here to deliver yet another gunner.”
With a shrug, Xue Yang replied, “We’ll see if that ‘good upbringing’ has any merit. Everyone they’ve sent us so far have been cowards or worse, losers.”
Xiao Xingchen hid a smile behind his hand as Xue Yang made an immature face. He shook his head minutely and returned to Al-Mogg, “We’ll take good care of him, O’Conner. We are grateful to have a full team again so we can work properly.”
His handler, or O’Conner as Xiao Xingchen called him, inspected some of the camp before wishing Song Lan luck and taking the hovercraft back in the general direction of the outpost. The larger sun dipped down into the horizon and left the smaller, red one behind.
Xue Yang returned to the ship panel after jerking his thumb at Song Lan and telling Xiao Xingchen that it was ‘his turn to babysit the newbie.’ He re-hooked his harness and hoisted himself up the side of the ship with ease, ignoring Xiao Xingchen’s protest that he help prepare the evening meal.
Shaking his head, Xiao Xingchen motioned for Song Lan to follow as he ducked into one of the tents.
It was significantly cooler inside the shade and the reprieve from the wind was a welcome one. The tent itself was a standard issue with retractable poles that held the fabric high enough for several medium-sized species to stand comfortably. There was a table in the center that was neatly arranged with specimen collections, liquids of various colors, and bags of different shapes and sizes. It was cluttered, almost overflowing with items, but Song Lan could tell that there was some method of organization – a method to the madness.
Xiao Xingchen picked up his army backpack and rummaged his hand around. One at a time, he placed a group of large root vegetables on the table and a handful of green leaves. With a quick pump of sanitizing spray on his hands and then the food, he flicked open his military-issued omnitool and started peeling one of the vegetables.
Song Lan followed his lead, using the sanitizing spray, pulling his omnitool from his pocket, and picking up one of the roots. The weight of it was similar to the potatoes he grew up eating, with a deep earthy smell. He glanced over to watch Xiao Xingchen’s dexterous hands make quick work of the thick skin and tried to copy his motions.
“It really is great to have you here, Soldier Song,” Xiao Xingchen said, smiling gently at him. “I hope you weren’t too disappointed with your placement with the Inga.”
The other man’s peels were long and smooth, curling down his wrist and landing softly on the table. Song Lan adjusted his grip on the omnitool knife, struggling to exert enough force to coax the peel away from the meat without gouging out large chunks. He never peeled a vegetable before, but didn’t want his first impression to be one of incompetence.
“I had no expectations for where I would be placed. It was not for me to know,” he replied. The knife dug in too much and a short, stubby peel fell to the tabletop with a wet plap. He took a deep breath before continuing, “I was ready to go wherever I was ordered to go.”
Xiao Xingchen hummed in response.
A silence fell over them both, and Song Lan was grateful for the quiet as he focused in on the vegetable in his hand. He had barely managed to peel one in the time that Xiao Xingchen finished three and was reaching for his fourth. His face felt hot as his fingers slipped and another thick strip of meat dropped to the table.
He was starting to get angry, heat rising from his gut. He hated that he couldn’t complete this simple task properly. He hated that he was failing so miserably in front of one of his new team members, the leader no less. Here he was, a terrible failure yet again. He’d never escape it…
Closing his eyes, he counted to three and then three again.
When he opened his eyes, Xiao Xingchen quickly dropped his head as if looking away from him, although it was nearly impossible to tell where the man was looking with his visor glasses. Song Lan set the omnitool down onto the table with a click and steadied himself to ask, “Will you show me the optimal way to peel one of these?”
Xiao Xingchen looked at him for a moment and then laughed. It wasn’t a cruel one like when one of his older brothers locked him in a cabinet with a fire rat, and it wasn’t a mean-spirited one like the recruits at his placement ceremony. The sound rang clear in the air and seemed to break up some tension Song Lan didn’t even realize had been hanging over him.
“Of course,” Xiao Xingchen said. “I’ll teach you the most optimal way to peel dust yams. But you have to promise me that you’ll be a little less formal. We aren’t that type of team, and Xue Yang will never leave you alone if he hears you speaking like a retired army general.”
Song Lan nodded as Xiao Xingchen moved in closer, positioning his hands where Song Lan could see how he held the yam and the knife. He explained the motions clearly without any condescension in his tone, and soon both men were dropping coiling ribbons of dust yam peel onto the table.
There was an approving smile on Xiao Xingchen’s face, and Song Lan felt his cheeks warm. He felt like he had passed some sort of secret test. But he was grateful to start chopping the leafy herbs, much more familiar with the action.
“Have you been in the military long?” He asked as Xiao Xingchen started filling a large clay pot with water.
“I joined around five years ago. First as part of the research division then as a scout. One of my scouting missions required me to learn how to pilot a Y series model and I fell in love with it.” Xiao Xingchen smiled as Song Lan dropped the minced leaves and yam pieces into the pot, “There’s a freedom in flying that’s hard to explain.”
Song Lan lifted the edge of the tent flap so that the other man could carry the pot outside to the small fire pit dug into the sandy dirt.
“It’s almost like a symbiosis between man and machine,” Xiao Xingchen continued. “The two coming together to reach new heights, new speeds, new places.”
“Holy shit, you’re already preaching about how much you love being a pilot, huh, Xingchen? The guy’s been here all of what? Six minutes? He might not even be here long enough to see you fly.”
Song Lan looked up to see Xue Yang near the second tent, unhooking the climbing gear from around his chest and waist. His arms were covered in brownish black smears and his uniform had almost as much patchwork as the tents. His short ponytail swung from one side to the other as he kicked off the last of the gear and sat heavily next to the fire pit.
He looked only at Xiao Xingchen as he asked, “What’s for dinner?”
Song Lan was stunned at the lack of respect. A pilot functioned as the leader of each and every Union team. Their knowledge of the craft, the flying space, and the living beings inside and out made them invaluable assets. They were expected to be professional and calm in the face of any obstacle. Most were chosen to go through the rigorous training due to their social skills and aptitude for handling disputes. During initial training, pilots were separated from the very start for intense cultural classes and language instruction, leaving the rest of the recruits to focus on honing their reflexes and building strength.
That was Song Lan’s role in this, or really any, team. As a gunner, he was expected to do the most strenuous tasks such as reloading ammo, handling artillery, and functioning as a protector for the rest of the crew. He was replaceable. There were seven gunners on the sidelines for each pilot out in the field.
A decent pilot was worth ten gunners in his opinion.
He knew less about mechanics though. They tended to specialize in particular series but were expected to have the basic knowledge to make any ship functional. Even with the sheer amount of memorization and hands-on experience needed, the position was a popular one. Most likely, it was because the mechanic’s job was considered the safest in the three living being model team as their location towards the center of the craft kept them away from the worst of unfriendly fire. Enemies usually took aim for the main windshield, hoping to take out the pilot and throw the craft into chaos, or the gunner’s seat in hopes to remove their defensive options.
A mechanic couldn’t fly without a pilot. A skillset focused on maintenance and repair couldn’t also hold onto inter-Union flight codes and travel patterns, gate and planet locations, and weapon trajectories. Which is why all recruits following either the gunner or mechanic learning path always treated pilots with respect. They already earned it by carrying the title alone.
“We’re eating yam stew,” Xiao Xingchen answered smoothly.
Xue Yang sighed and heavily dropped his face in his hand, elbow resting on his knee, “We had yams yesterday though.”
“Don’t complain, Soldier Xue.”
Song Lan blinked at the formality. Xiao Xingchen had called Xue Yang “Yang-yang” earlier in Ratatosk. He had thought it might have been a nickname, but now he felt uneasy, like he accidentally caught a glimpse of a classmate changing while walking past their open dormitory door. He wondered if it was too late to tell to his teammates that he knew the language they shared.
“The yams taste like sand, and I already have sand in my hair and up my ass-crack. Why do you think I want to shove it down my throat too?”
Unable to tolerate the whining, Song Lan snapped, “Shouldn’t you show some respect for our team leader?”
Xue Yang glanced over at him with a raised eyebrow and retorted, “Shouldn’t you have more respect for your seniors, kid? This is your first assignment, right? You don’t even know where the ropes are for someone to show you how to use them.”
Song Lan bristled. He was the youngest son of the family, but he wasn’t a child. He was not a naïve young man who thought of war as just a game or a theatre played in the far reaches of the universe far away from those he cared about. He joined the military recruits late, a man of fully marriageable age, someone who should have been worried about sourcing materials for building a home for a growing family rather than aiming a supersonic missile splitter at a 35-degree angle. But that meant he carried life experience some of the boys in his class didn’t have, couldn’t have.
Before he could respond, Xiao Xingchen smoothly butted in with a, “We should all show each other respect as fellow soldiers and as fellow teammates. We start training for our upcoming mission tomorrow and there’s no time for petty bickering.”
“Yeah, well he started it,” Xue Yang mumbled under his breath, flopping back into the sand and squinting up as the last few rays of the second sun darkened into deep shades of brown.
Song Lan woke the next morning to Xiao Xingchen dressing. The zip of the many zippers of the pilot-issued uniform and the soft tinkling of the command keys seemed loud in the quiet of the large tent. His eyes caught as Xiao Xingchen twisted his hair in a practiced motion and used a long pin to secure it in place. The sliver of pale skin that peeked out from above his collar looked perfect, almost porcelain, and Song Lan quickly averted his eyes, careful to not rustle his sleeping bag.
His eyes instead found Xue Yang’s knowing gaze from across the tent.
That woke him up better than any Northern Quadrant coffee could, and Song Lan swiftly rolled up his sleeping bag, buttoned up his uniform, and swallowed down a ration of oatmeal protein bar. Xiao Xingchen greeted him outside with a hot drink in a non-army-issued cup. They had beat both suns to the horizon and a chill remained in the air. The cup in his hands warmed his fingers and he drank deeply.
The taste was… horrendous.
He blinked and looked down into the cup. There were some crumbled, black leaves at the bottom of the vessel – a tea then. But the flavor reminded him of the smell of burning rubber or the acid that leaks from older android models. He glanced at Xiao Xingchen as he sipped happily away at his own drink in another non-issued cup. Which was technically against protocol. He had barely been with his new team for a full day and he was already breaking army rules. Granted, it would be a minor infraction if they were to be caught, but it would still be placed in his personnel file.
Xue Yang bumped into Song Lan’s shoulder as he walked over to the clay pot and burst him from his spiral. “Watch it,” he murmured, yawning loudly as he poured himself a cup of the mystery tea. “Also, shut up,”
Song Lan rolled his eyes and braved another sip of his tea. The taste did not improve.
“I mean it,” Xue Yang said, using his steaming cup to point in Song Lan’s direction. “I can hear you thinking and stressing all the way over here. If you don’t calm down, we aren’t going to get off the ground today.”
Xiao Xingchen stood and patted Song Lan’s shoulder, “You’ll do fine, Soldier Song. I’m sure of it.”
“We shouldn’t be using these cups,” he blurted out, taking a step back from the pilot.
Now it was Xue Yang’s turn to roll his eyes, seeming much more awake. He looked pointedly at Xiao Xingchen and said, “Not only did they send us a loser, but they sent us a snitch.”
“Xue Yang,” the pilot replied, tone firm. “I think we all are a little nervous about drilling with a new team configuration, and that is understandable. But we are not hazing our newest member.”
He turned his head towards Song Lan and continued, “You are correct that these are personal items which are usually prohibited by Army code. I have determined their use to be of value as they do not become too hot to touch by midday and also increase morale. However, if it makes you uncomfortable to use one, you are welcome to use your army-issued cup instead.”
By the time the three of them geared up and climbed into the ship, Xue Yang had whispered “Snitchhhhhhhhh” behind Song Lan’s back no less than four times.
The first sun lifted over the horizon and the air quickly warmed. The wind started to pick up and sand dropped delicately into the access shaft before Song Lan turned and secured the exit. He turned the latch with a swift movement and ducked down to slide into the gunner’s seat.
Even in a strange craft, the familiarity of the controls set his mind at ease. Song Lan let his fingers drift over the missile release hatch switches and the beam defense system buttons. He knew what to do here. There were no gray areas with weapons and machinery like this, not like the ones that existed in talking with other people.
He heard the clank of Xue Yang dropping down into the bowels of the ship, disappearing from view, and caught a glimpse of Xiao Xingchen as he gracefully leaned over the control panel and started flicking switches.
The engine hummed to life. The sound was loud but strong, no hesitation in the start-up, and the metal walls thrummed with energy. Song Lan could feel the vibrations stir up his own blood. The hum drowning out all other thoughts as his focus narrowed on preparing for flight.
“Engine stable!” Xue Yang called out from below. “Watch the angle as we take off so she doesn’t suck up a bunch of sand.”
“Noted,” Xiao Xingchen replied. He hit some buttons and then settled into the pilot’s chair. One by one, he unzipped the various slots in his suit to attach electrode connectors, the sticky sound of them only drowned out by the sound of Xue Yang’s boots in the belly of the ship. His face fell almost blank as he shrugged into his role and let the ship’s AI register his body processes – initiating a carbon-machine connection to reduce reaction time and hesitation.
Song Lan couldn’t see everything he was doing from the angle of his own seat, but he could hear the sound of the command keys as Xiao Xingchen twisted them into their rightful places.
“All systems clear. Total lift in seven seconds. Song Lan, all weaponry secured?”
Song Lan quickly swept eyes around his cramped compartment. All artillery shells were secured. All manual weapons tied down. Both exit shafts showed locked status.
“Ready for lift off,” he replied, hands tightening on the balance bar in front of him. It was the pilot’s responsibility to steer and manage both take-off and landing, but as the team’s certified muscle, it was the gunner’s job to steady the ship. His grip on the bar kept them tilted upright no matter which direction they were flying, which meant that he needed to coordinate with Xiao Xingchen almost immediately to make the flight a success.
Despite her age, the craft lifted off the ground easily, kicking up a storm of red dust. She wobbled as Song Lan adjusted the angle of the bar, but steadied just as quicky. A sense of pride rushed through him as they floated into the air. He pushed or let up as Xiao Xingchen carefully maneuvered the ship up with a slight tilt portside protecting the engine from sand damage.
Xiao Xingchen walked them through basic drills: quick rises, side dodges, sudden dives. He called out the maneuver loud enough for Xue Yang to hear over the engine, but the words didn’t feel like commands. The way that the pilot seamlessly communicated his intentions and followed through; his words felt like statements. They were inevitabilities that manifested as soon as they hit the air. It was as if their team had been together for years and they were going over a routine skills check, Xiao Xingchen checking off mundane tests rather than assessing their compatibility.
“That’s a nice, steady hand there, Song Lan,” Xiao Xingchen said. “If this is how you hold a ship, you really must have great aim.”
Before Song Lan could come up with a response, a high-pitched hiss came from below as Xue Yang dumped some sort of coolant on the reactor coils. “Ready for transmogrify whenever you two are done flirting,” he called up.
“Noted,” Xiao Xingchen said at the same time Song Lan automatically replied, “Heard.”
He had never experienced transmogrification in an older series craft before. The recruits had only practiced on the newer, more commonly used models. So, when Xiao Xingchen pulled several levers in quick succession and Xue Yang grunted as he rearranged some heavy cords, Song Lan tensed, eyes on the emergency abort button. They each had one close at hand in case something went wrong mid-conversion, and Song Lan was prepared just in case.
He would keep the ship and everyone in it safe.
He had to.
The craft jerked hard and Song Lan almost lost control of the balancing bar. The metal walls snapped as the shape of the vessel changed into Battle Mode. The artillery launcher and laser gun were thrust outwards as Song Lan’s seat twisted him. Looking up, he could see the bottom of Xiao Xingchen’s seat, and looking down, he could see the top of Xue Yang’s head as he attended to several pressure valves. Facing forward, he could see straight in front of them, bright red dust twirling in the light of two brutal suns.
A gunner was the core, the center. His favorite instructor always said, ‘If the pilot is the head and the mechanic is the heart, the gunner is the guts to make it all happen.’ Disconnecting the balancing bar into two sections, he inserted them into the control connects. He waited for further orders even as his fingers itched to know how the ship would move under his command.
“What can we do to make that transition faster, Xue Yang?” Xiao Xingchen called out. “The speed is fine now but it needs to be quicker in a real battle scenario.”
There was a loud sound, like a pipe being hit with something metallic, and Xue Yang called back, “Two-fold issue this time around, Captain. One, our new recruit is way heavier than the last gunner so I needed to adjust the pressure in the portside gauges to accommodate his fat ass – new measurements have been noted. And two, we almost went sideways at the start because someone couldn’t keep the ship level and I almost knocked my fucking teeth out!”
Song Lan gripped the two bar controls tightly.
“The wind tipped us last minute at no more than two degrees,” Xiao Xingchen replied. “Are you telling me that you’re so off-balance that two degrees will take you out?”
The mechanic mumbled out some complaints and curses in Ratatosk as he shuffled around loudly.
“Soldier Xue, can we continue?”
“Yeah, whatever,” he replied back in Al-Mogg.
“Song Lan,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Test out your arms. If there are any joints catching, inform Xue Yang so they can be attended to after landing.”
“Yes, Sir,” he replied, eager to show the two of them he was capable. He could handle this.
With his grip on the bar controls, he pulled them closer to his body. The missile launcher and laser gun raised with the motion. Pushing them down towards his feet, the two artificial limbs lowered in tandem. He slowly worked the arms in several directions and motions, much like the early morning stretches the elderly miners would do together in the green spaces, and found no issues. None of the joints caught or protested, only rolling smoothly one way and then another.
“Bringing her down to the surface,” Xiao Xingchen called out. “We should fire off a test round to check for recoil. I’d like to try out our new legs as well.”
Both Xue Yang and Song Lan responded affirmatively.
The landing was firm but controlled. The weight of the craft caused them to sink a little in the sand but the movement of the lower metal limbs kept them from getting stuck. Left, right, left again – this model stood upright on two legs with two upper limbs. It could use all four at a time in a pinch but the base skeleton didn’t have enough curve to keep that position for long periods of time without causing severe damage. The legs moved quickly, much better than should be possible for an older model.
Xue Yang whooped as Xiao Xingchen leaped over a sand dune and started them at a run.
“See? I told you those boosters would be worth it!” he hollered up.
Xiao Xingchen laughed, “I have to admit, the speed is so much better. Soldier Song, would you fire a test shot? The lines should be clear.”
Glancing at the screen beside him, Song Lan confirmed that the lines between the laser gun and the reactor core were clear of sand, dust, or debris. It brought him some comfort that while Xue Yang may be trouble, he was at least competent at his job. Using the bar control at his right, he swung the arm towards the sky and double-tapped a button to fire two short laser blasts into the air.
There was no sputtering, no recoil, and no smoke.
The test was a success.
Dinner that night was yam again. This time the roots were cooked in a thick, savory sauce with a little bit of bite to it. Spice wasn’t common in Xing so Song Lan savored the sting of it on his tongue. He wished he had a drink to help wash down the mild discomfort, but his army-issued metal cup was still too hot to touch from its time in the suns’ light, even while wrapped up in one of his extra shirts.
Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang each had their own decorated cups which they sipped from as the three ate on the ground of the largest tent. The two talked comfortably with each other in a way that only came from familiarity, time spend together in the field. Xue Yang would say whatever he was thinking out loud and Xiao Xingchen would laugh and ask a relevant question, pushing the conversation forward. It was smooth, routine, and looked effortless.
The burning sensation no longer was at the back of his mouth - Song Lan could feel it drop hot into his chest.
In the middle of some story, Xue Yang gestured with his left hand and a flash of black fabric caught Song Lan’s eye. It looked like a soft leather was wrapped around the mechanic’s smallest finger and attached with a loop around his wrist. He hadn’t seen it the day before with all the oil or grease smeared over him and he wondered at the sight.
A pilot with a sight aid. A mechanic with some sort of hand injury. The Inga Squad truly was unlike any other.
Xue Yang must have caught his eye because he stopped mid-sentence to ask, “What’s your problem?”
Startled, Song Lan just blinked at him.
“Did your podunk town forget to teach you any manners? Who just stares at people like that?” Xue Yang scoffed and switched to Ratatosk to say to Xingchen, “You should move your sleeping bag to the other side of the tent to avoid this creep. Who knows what he’ll do while we’re both asleep.”
Xiao Xingchen shook his head, “I think he just has a question. Give him the space to ask it.”
Both of their gazes turned to him and Song Lan’s heart raced. Words were not his friend. He couldn’t wield them like a knife or use them like a shield. He couldn’t parry in an argument or stand his ground in a verbal conflict. He had to work with these two men, get to know them to build comradery and increase their mission success chances. He had to learn Xiao Xingchen’s body language to better anticipate how to stabilize the ship. He needed to know Xue Yang’s tonal changes to understand the everchanging craft capabilities in a battle scenario. He needed to absorb so much information and yet he couldn’t even ask for a sip of water from one of their contraband cups.
So, he did the thing he was best at.
He got up, ignored Xue Yang’s cutting jabs, cleaned his bowl, and hid in his sleeping bag.
Keeping his eyes squeezed shut, he listened to the hushed tones of the other two until they both put out the lantern and settled in for sleep.
They spent the next few days drilling both inside and outside the ship. Xiao Xingchen walked them through daily exercises, then they ran a short circuit around their camp. While Xiao Xingchen worked out battle scenarios with the ship’s AI and Xue Yang performed whatever regular maintenance duties he had, Song Lan stepped aside to strength train. After the midday meal, the three of them would enter the ship and test out any new adjustments the mechanic made to the craft or the pilot to the mainframe. Then dinner, clean-up, and bed.
Conversation was kept at a minimum. Song Lan could feel Xue Yang’s eyes boring into the back of his head but avoided eye contact. Xiao Xingchen accepted his silence outside the ship but would turn his whole body to look at the gunner if his responses in the craft were too soft to hear.
Song Lan wondered how long it would take until they sent a request to Squad Leader Espinoza for a new gunner, a better teammate.
Even he was getting sick of dust yams. There were always some gritty bits no matter how long Xue Yang mashed or Xiao Xingchen roasted them. He was chewing a particularly crunchy piece when Xiao Xingchen handed him a bright yellow, clay-fired cup filled with dark leaves. It was the first time the pilot had offered him something since that very first morning, and the suddenness of the gesture stunned him into accepting it.
He murmured his thanks and took a sip. It was terribly bitter. Song Lan snuck a glance to see if Xue Yang caught him wincing at the flavor, and watched as the mechanic threw the contents of the cup over his shoulder in a swift movement while Xiao Xingchen’s back was turned. Their eyes met for just a second and Xue Yang winked at him before playfully asking the pilot for a refill.
“What kind of tea is this?” Song Lan asked slowly, testing a few words on his tongue before letting them escape from behind his teeth.
Xiao Xingchen smiled, “The leaves are from a plant that grows in the Eastern Quadrant’s Yerknayin Mountains. The locals say that the tea from these leaves can protect you from diseases and nightmares. Drinking it is a wish and a prayer to the heavens.”
“So, you both are from the Eastern Quadrant?” Song Lan asked.
Taking another sip of his tea, Xiao Xingchen nodded. “Yes, I grew up in the Yerknayin Mountains…”
“And I’m from Ratatoskr,” Xue Yang interrupted. “How did you know that?”
Song Lan took a deep breath before answering, “I thought that might be the case since you both speak…”
“You do speak Ratatosk!” Xue Yang yelled as he leaped to his feet. “I told you, Xingchen. He’s a spy sent by Espinoza and his crew of slimy bastards. A guy pockets a few things at a market one time and then they send the most obvious narc to write a report documenting all the little things you do to get by that aren’t fully sanctioned by the army.”
Song Lan’s bowl fell to the ground as Xue Yang pushed into his space, grabbing the front of his uniform and dragging him down the few inches to look him right in the eyes. Warm, bitter tea spilled over his fingers and darkened Xue Yang’s uniform shirt.
“Who gives you the right to judge us, huh? A softie like you has never seen combat. You probably woke up one day bored of all the coal and nanodiamonds you and your grandpappy mine day in and day out and thought ‘I’ll join the army for a little excitement. All the girls will be drooling over me if I get a cool scar or medal of honor’.”
Song Lan shoved Xue Yang off of him easily.
“You don’t know me,” he spat back.
Xiao Xingchen materialized in between them, a hand on each of their chests.
“That’s enough,” he said gently. “A proper introduction is long overdue. There can be no trust between us if we don’t talk to one another.” With a pointed look in Song Lan’s direction, he continued, “Soldier Song, I’m afraid we cannot wait for you to be comfortable enough to initiate this conversation on your own. Please tell us why you joined the Union army.”
Song Lan stepped back and sat heavily on the dusty ground. Both suns had already set for the night and the still air weighed heavily around the crackling fire pit. Brown shadows danced across his teammates faces, and Song Lan looked into the cup in his hands as they each took their own seat.
“I’m from the Lunar Coalition of Xing,” he started in Ratatosk. “I joined the army because I’m the last of eleven sons.”
Silence fell over their small camp.
Xue Yang blinked at him, “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
With a frown, Song Lan replied, “That’s all there is to it; I either mined or I left. I chose to leave.”
Switching back to Al-Mogg, Xue Yang said, “Well, I’m so glad that we were the better option. I hope you enjoy this little mining vacation until you get bored of us and you decide to retire to your cute moon cottage to have a thousand other tiny losers that look just like you.” He stood and turned with a huff, heading back for the main tent.
“Xue Yang, please wait,” Xiao Xingchen called out. “I need to talk to you both.”
Xue Yang open and closed both of his fists before he turned around. With a flick of his wrist, he waved the pilot to continue.
“I was contacted by our squad leader, and the Mohashagor mission’s priority has been recategorized. It is now considered to be of immediate importance,” Xiao Xingchen said solemnly. “We will leave base camp tomorrow morning before the first sunrise and use the nearest rumdoa gateway to travel to the Woda system.”
He paused to look at them both in turn.
“This is our first mission together. Most teams have at least a month to prepare before an official assignment but we don’t have that luxury. We’ve practiced well in training. I have every confidence that we will succeed, but we need to work as a team – no instigating, no avoiding.”
“Heard,” Song Lan replied softly, feeling chided.
“Fine,” Xue Yang huffed before turning away and slipping into the tent.
The gunner and the pilot sat in the dark, still night. There were no insects on this planet, no animals that humans would recognize, Xiao Xingchen had told him. Just single-celled creatures that hid from the sun in cooler air vents buried far beneath the red sand.
How easy it must be to be so small, Song Lan thought, looking up at the splash of stars and galaxies above them. How easy to stay safe and warm, tucked away from the pain of the outside world.
Xiao Xingchen’s voice brought his gaze back down.
“I’ve heard that Xing has grown into quite the hub in the last few decades. My guardian told me a long time ago that it used to be a smattering of empty, gray rocks, but my recon studies mentioned that the mining planets there are rich in resources and culture.”
With a nod, Song Lan replied, “Terraforming and drilling advancements have made it possible for Xing to grow in ways that none of the early settlers could have predicted. There are at least twenty-three different species and around a hundred different cultures represented in the Lunar Coalition now. Everyone is hard-working and willing to lend a hand. No one goes hungry. It really was a great place to grow up.”
Xiao Xingchen hummed as he poured out some salt to dampen the fire. They both watched as the flames died out and left the burning coals to crackle and pop. The deep orange glow reflected in the pilot’s visor glasses, one bright light at the center like an all-seeing entity.
“There were rumors that the Himinn Union was in negotiations with the Coalition to develop and produce synthetic soldiers using nanodiamond technology.”
Song Lan froze.
He couldn’t believe how causally Xiao Xingchen brought up the topic. Synthetic soldiers or really any fully synthetic being was forbidden in the Himinn Union. After the destruction of the Verpa Haug Republic by their own AI empowered mechanical army, safety protocols and universal standards were implemented at lightning speed across the known universe. Even medical procedures transplanting fully machinated organs were monitored by a regulatory body.
However, with the increase in territorial challenges from nearby civilizations, Himinn was eager to start exploring biotechnology in secret, unwilling to share with its citizens until the government could provide an iron-clad excuse for its secrecy.
Over the last few years, more and more high-ranking generals and lawmakers had visited his family home. The smell of alcohol, the smoky haze of cigars, and loud laughter into the night kept the youngest children up, curious to know more about the strange, fancy guests. Song Lan had heard plenty regarding trade deals and underground testing labs through closed doors and thin walls to know that the rumors were more than simply true – they were underwhelming compared to the truth.
“I’m sure those stories are just rumors,” Song Lan said, standing up and brushing the clinging dust off his uniform pants. “That type of technology was lost with the Verpa Haug.”
He felt Xiao Xingchen watching him as he gathered his things and turned to join Xue Yang in the tent.
“Isn’t the leader of the Lunar Coalition named Song Baixue?”
“Yes. Good night, Sir,” Song Lan said over his shoulder. His stride was steady even though he felt shaky. He hadn’t expected his team to figure out his relation to the leader of Xing so quickly. The contracts between the Union military and his family were so new, the population boom and rising export economy was still so fresh, he didn’t think that it would be included in general pilot studies.
Maybe Xiao Xingchen’s previous recon work had been related to Xing. Maybe he had scoped out a few of the moons to see if there were places for hidden labs or citizens willing to turn a blind eye for a more profitable living situation. How much did he, could he know?
Laying in his sleeping bag, Song Lan heard Xiao Xingchen come in much later. The many zips of his uniform a comforting, familiar sound as he changed into civilian clothes for sleep. A part of him wanted to peek, try to glimpse more of the man’s face, see if he ever took off his visual aid. But the other part of him remembered Xue Yang’s sharp eyes from across the room and Xiao Xingchen’s knowing smile, and he closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.
The journey to the Woda system went without incident.
They packed up their camp and shoved everything in the small cargo hold in the ship. Their ascent into the atmosphere was smooth since the winds hadn’t yet picked up. And since the Inga were the only living beings stationed in the area, there was no wait for the gateway crossing.
While waiting for approval to enter the rumdoa zone, Xiao Xingchen passed out some sort of meat sticks that he claimed were ‘only for special occasions’. The sticks were long, smoky and spicy, and Song Lan was horrified as he watched Xue Yang shove the entire thing into his mouth, chew maybe twice, and then swallow it down before he even managed to unwrap his own.
It wasn’t until Xiao Xingchen fiddled with something on the control dashboard and started communicating with the gateway monitor through their comms mic that Song Lan realized something he hadn’t noticed before.
“Is the AI system working?”
Xue Yang poked his upper body out from the engine room and rested his cheek in his hand, “Yeah, why?”
“Is the speaker by the gunner’s chair working? I haven’t heard the AI at all.”
Perhaps it was foolish, but Song Lan had just assumed that Xiao Xingchen muted or requested unsupported training time while they were in the Dust Bowl. It was a common practice to turn off AI features in the beginning of squad training as it assisted new teams with building collaboration skills and reinforced new recruits’ knowledge before they could foster a reliance on the advanced computing program bolstered by the army’s intelligence agencies.
“Oh,” Xue Yang replied, “Only Xingchen can hear it.”
Song Lan just looked at him.
“What? There’s only one speaker in the ship and it’s by the pilot’s seat,” Xue Yang said, looking down at the fingernails on his right hand. “It’s probably just too quiet for you to hear.”
Song Lan frowned. That didn’t feel right. Even if the speaker was soft, he should be able to hear Xiao Xingchen speak to the AI. He never heard him address the system a single time since he joined the team.
“Don’t worry about it,” Xue Yang said, rolling his eyes. “The captain’s weird but he’s damn good at what he does. We don’t even really need it.”
The rumdoa gateway rumbled as the outer ring spun to the coordinates Xiao Xingchen provided the gate monitor. The center of the circle shimmered and the pilot called out a reminder to buckle in before launch.
Xue Yang dropped out of sight as Song Lan double-checked his chair restraints.
The hum of the gateway grew into a mighty roar as the gravitational well sucked the ship into the center of its large, spinning rings. The walls shook and the vibrations knocked Song Lan’s teeth together. He tightened his grip on the balancing bar to try and keep the craft steady.
The sensation of passing through a rumdoa gate was one he felt he would never get used to. Time elongated somehow so that every thought passed like a distant bird soaring across the horizon. He felt his skin stretch as if gentle fingers were trying to pull him back by the upper epidermis. It was the closest thing to experiencing being in two places at once, he thought. And it was nauseating.
After a long moment, the ship exited the gateway field with a loud phwip and Song Lan’s ears popped.
Their comms crackled to life. Xiao Xingchen addressed the new monitor, providing their approval code, and their craft was granted permission to continue the journey. Even at top speed, it still took another few hours before Xiao Xingchen confirmed they had reached their destination.
The Woda solar system was medium sized with a bright yellow star at its center. Song Lan could see five planets with his naked eye and a handful of moons scattered around the largest masses. There were no cities, no settlements sanctioned in the area, and without the movement of satellites, transporters, and other ships, the system felt desolate. The hum of the ship faded as Xue Yang eased up on the engine, and Woda fell eerily quiet in a way that the mining moons never were.
The drills and clanging of metal against rock never stopped. His home was constantly filled with the sounds of sweat and determination, longing and desperation. On festival days, when all equipment was turned off and miners flooded the courtyard of the largest moon’s courthouse, the people seemed to frantically sing, play instruments, shout – anything to ignore the reminder that the rock they built their lives around was lifeless. They were the mold growing on top of a rotting corpse, hopeful and brightly colored, consuming and consuming until there would be nothing left but bones and dust.
Song Lan turned from the window as he heard the swivel of the pilot’s chair. Xiao Xingchen clapped his hands and called for a meeting, waiting for Xue Yang to crawl up and sit cross-legged in the main cabin before he started to debrief them on the mission ahead. There were still electrode connectors attached to his chest, his waist, his left bicep. The wires were long enough so that he could turn and stand if needed, but they clung to him closely, beckoning the man back to the control panel. A reminder that he was an extension of the ship itself.
“… landing, which means that we will be relying on you, Xue Yang, to make sure there’s no breach. If we do have seepage, our top priority is to protect the engine then weapons.”
Xiao Xingchen looked over and Song Lan nodded.
“Once we land, it is full stealth, all the time,” he continued. “We will land about twenty minutes away from the cache. Xue Yang will stay with the ship and Song Lan will come with me. We swim out, confirm if the stockpile is secure, then return back to the ship to report out. Any questions?”
“Newbie,” Xue Yang said, turning toward Song Lan with a huge grin. “You do know how to swim, right?”
Song Lan did, in fact, know how to swim.
He, however, did not feel confident swimming in the gear Xue Yang handed him.
“It’s for stealth,” Xue Yang assured him. His grin widened as Song Lan twisted the uncomfortable fabric uncertainly. “It’s also for warmth because we have no idea what temperature that water is going to be.”
“It will be twenty-eight degrees Celsius,” Xiao Xingchen said as he stepped over to the two. He was already in his wetsuit. The sleek deep blue material shimmered as he walked and clung to him like a second skin. Dark hair spilled over his shoulders as he bent down to pull an oxygen tank from a cabinet next to the gunner’s chair.
The line of his body was decadent, long and smooth. Song Lan looked away quickly, begging the heat to not show on his face. Instead, he glanced at Xue Yang. He watched as dark eyes roamed over what they could, and when Xiao Xingchen turned to hand Xue Yang the first canister and bent down for the next, Song Lan cleared his throat.
Xue Yang’s heated gaze turned towards him, and he winked. The hairs on the back of Song Lan’s neck raised. He wanted to hit the mechanic for being so… disrespectful, so fresh with their pilot. He wanted to punch him for trying to also pull him into this unacceptable behavior. How dare he think that Song Lan was just as audacious? Just as base?
“Soldier Song?” Xiao Xingchen asked, hands holding a second oxygen tank. “Do you need help getting into your suit?”
Xue Yang burst out laughing as the blood drained from Song Lan’s face. He quickly confirmed he could put the suit on himself and shuffled away to pull his uniform shirt off over his head. He listened to the clank of equipment as the other two men collected the remaining gear, took a deep breath, and wiggled into the tight suit.
There was truly nothing left to the imagination.
Song Lan wished more than anything that he could disintegrate into a thousand atoms and avoid the situation all together.
He sighed quietly to himself before turning around, picking up one of the oxygen tanks, and strapping it around his chest. It took a few tries, but he managed to snap it into place on the third attempt. Before he could settle the breathing apparatus into place, Song Lan heard a sharp whistle.
Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen were both looking at him.
“Okay, Soldier Song,” Xue Yang jeered. “You really ought to be a gunner, packing that much heat!”
The mechanic dissolved into laughter as Xiao Xingchen elbowed him in the ribs and demanded he apologize. Song Lan waved them off as he returned to the gunner seat and prepared for landing, hoping if he just ignored what was happening, it would somehow go away.
The ship approached the small, light blue planet and only eased on the throttle as they started their descent into the atmosphere. Song Lan adjusted his feet to better brace himself as he fought to keep the balancing bar locked in place as the atmospheric layers dragged at the craft. He could hear Xue Yang running around frantically in the belly of the ship, steam valves screaming as the ship wobbled and shook.
Breaking free of some heavy, low-hanging clouds, the ship dipped towards the surface and then tipped back up again. Xiao Xingchen repeated the motion several times, slowing their speed with each descent. It reminded Song Lan of watching a feather fall, rocking gently on an unseen breeze. The water below rose up to meet them in a great wave, and the rocking motion of the ship matched its swell. They rode along until the wave sunk back down into the ocean and the ship bobbed with the current.
“Soldier Xue, report. How did we do?”
Xue Yang called back up, “We haven’t taken on any water. I told you my welding skills were top notch. It’s like that harpoon never breached the hull at all.”
Xiao Xingchen shook his head as he placed the ship in Idle. He then collected his hair at the base of his neck and tied it with a scrap of wire, twisting the ends together to hold the hair in place and tucking it into the neck of his suit. He easily strapped the other oxygen tank to his chest and secured the breathing apparatus before turning to Song Lan.
“We landed a little bit closer than expected so the swim will be about fifteen minutes east. Are you ready?”
Song Lan nodded. He climbed up to the exit hatch and released the lever securing the door shut. Slipping his own breathing apparatus in his mouth, he climbed up the ladder to the top of the ship and shimmied down to clear a path for Xiao Xingchen.
He heard the pilot say something to Xue Yang before he started up the ladder. Once he breached the top and slid off to the side, Song Lan closed the hatch door, checking the seal for any openings. By the time he felt confident that the seal was secure, Xiao Xingchen was already in the water.
Conscious of the call for stealth, Song Lan slid down the side of the ship and slipped into the water beside him, pulling down his goggles.
The light blue water lapped at them both. Chilly droplets sprayed his face as the waves investigated the sides of their craft, and Song Lan was immediately grateful for the warmth of the wetsuit. The surface of Mohashagor was entirely made up of water and blue stretched as far as the eye could see. There was no land past the horizon, no beach or bank, just their craft bobbing along with the waves.
Song Lan didn’t have time to dwell on that fact as Xiao Xingchen motioned at him to engage their suits’ camouflage technology. He pressed a small plate at the back of his neck, the metal tab clicking as its shape changed. His suit shimmered in waves as the scales woven into the fabric reacted to the light around them, settling on a shade of blue very similar to the water they were floating in. Xiao Xingchen did the same and gestured with a nod of his head.
Follow me.
Xiao Xingchen’s pace was steady and sure. He kept his head just below the surface of the water and glided like he belonged there. The movements of his arms and legs were smooth yet efficient. The tint of his visor glasses seemed lighter, as if they had their own cloaking technology built in.
Song Lan kept pace with him, but was not nearly as graceful. The hardened, elongated toes of the suit mimicked fins or a webbed foot. It felt awkward with the way his ankles wanted to move naturally, but with the solid strokes of his arms, he managed to stay in close range of the pilot.
The cache they were checking on was a secret stockpile of Union army weapons.
Xiao Xingchen had briefed the team on the way, relaying every minute detail without needing a single glance at a reference or repeat from Command. He told them of a store of hidden weapons forgotten from a previous skirmish decades ago left in the ocean of some lonely corner of the universe. That corner being a little bit too close to the emerging Kingdom of Mjusi and their enterprising new leader was starting to make the Union’s higher ups nervous - after all, no one liked their technology or research swiped and studied to be used against them. So, their team was meant to put eyes on the cache to determine if it had been located by Mjusi forces, and if not, load the weaponry onto their ship and haul it back to the Dust Bowl for pick-up without getting spotted by enemy forces.
All in all, it didn’t seem like a very dangerous mission.
Xiao Xingchen slowed and turned to him. He used his hands to sign: Two minutes straight ahead. I open the chest. You circle me to keep watch. Song Lan nodded and scanned the water as they both continued forward.
The ocean was clear as far as the sun’s rays could reach. There were no fish, no leafy plants. There were no shadows disguising larger creatures.
The only thing Song Lan could see were tiny floating specs.
He wasn’t a scientist or a researcher though. They could be proteins sticking together or dust that escaped the crust down below. They could be the building blocks of life for all he knew.
He wondered if the two of them were introducing new organisms to this blank slate of a world.
Would one of Xiao Xingchen’s hairs drift off into the blue nothing to feed some microscopic creature? Would red dust fall down into the depths and confuse any possible future inhabitants? Would some of the mites living on his eyelashes get lost at sea, somehow braving this scary new world together to become the dominant species in a hundred years’ time?
These were thoughts Song Lan let drift across his mind as he scanned the waters for any sign of life or danger.
They came upon the chest at just two minutes.
It was long and made of some sort of dark, heavy metal. There were large marks of discoloration from the constant contact with water, but otherwise looked untouched. The container was secured with a long chain that disappeared into the dark beneath them which swayed with the current.
Xiao Xingchen swam right to the chest, pulling out a set of small tools and fiddling with the locking mechanism.
Song Lan continued to scan their surroundings for any sign of life, past or present.
The Mjusi were known for their adept spy network. They had ambassadors, merchants, traders, and politicians in almost every reach of the known galaxy on their payroll, hoping to expand their territory and introduce their ‘superior’ way of life to the less fortunate. They had gathered a growing army by collecting small nations in nearby systems, enticing all with their lush home planet and bounty of healing herbs. It was easy to convince leaders to give up their power and their peoples when you could offer them a cure-all and the rights to sell it.
It was possible but unlikely they wouldn’t know about a hidden load of weapons in their own backyard.
After a moment, Xiao Xingchen shoved the small toolkit behind his oxygen tank and lifted the lid just a crack, leaning in close to peer inside. Then, he gently lowered it back down. He looked over his shoulder at Song Lan and signed: No. Back to ship.
Song Lan swept the area again with his eyes, fearing a trap. If the Mjusi already swiped the weapons, they may have set some sort of ambush for anyone coming to collect them. They may be waiting for some sort of evidence they could use to convince other governments that the Himinn Union broke into Mjusi territory, planted weapons of war, and sent in a team of assassins to collect them.
Xiao Xingchen must have had a similar thought because he doubled his swimming speed going back to the ship.
They made it back to the ship in just over ten minutes, and Song Lan’s lungs and arms ached. He trembled as he climbed the side ladder, knocked on the hatch door, and scanned the horizon.
There was a click and the hatch door opened.
Song Lan ushered Xiao Xingchen inside before he entered himself, closing and locking the hatch behind them.
Spitting out his breathing apparatus, Xiao Xingchen strode to the control panel. Tapping the comms link, he asked Command for a Ts’ekh interpreter. The operator switched him to another line and the pilot gave his report in Ts’ekh, a rare language only spoken by one religious group of a species that lived within the Union, which also functioned as the army’s official, unofficial code for sensitive information.
Song Lan was startled by a jab to his bicep and looked over at Xue Yang.
“What happened?” he asked, eyes darting over to study Xiao Xingchen. “What’s got him riled up so bad?”
“Weapons are gone,” Song Lan replied.
Xue Yang made a face, “That’s just our luck, isn’t it? Fuck, I’ll go start warming her up for takeoff.”
Before the mechanic could drop down to tend the engine, Xiao Xingchen’s voice rang out. He was already stripping out of his wetsuit, tossing the extra gear to the side and pulling out another batch of electrode sticky patches with his free hand. Now speaking with his crew, he switched back to Al-Mogg.
“We are initiating an immediate takeoff and headed straight to the rumdoa gate. The weapons cache was not only emptied but rigged to explode. There are bound to be enemy eyes on Mohashagor and on us. Our goal is to return to the Dust Bowl as soon as possible so we are not caught in enemy territory or neutral space.”
Song Lan’s heart dropped into his stomach.
‘Rigged to explode’? Xiao Xingchen barely opened the chest, and yet he could tell it was that dangerous? He had been right there, but if the pilot had lifted the lid any faster or higher, they’d only be a team of two now.
“How long until she’s ready for the air?” Xiao Xingchen called out, his wetsuit puddled on the floor next to him as he sat in the pilot’s chair in his regular uniform. He hooked in the final electrode as he started pressing buttons on the dashboard.
“Rush order? Gimme ten seconds,” Xue Yang shouted back.
Song Lan stumbled into the gunner’s chair, his suit squelching uncomfortably underneath him, as he buckled in. He automatically checked the hatches, the weaponry, and placed his oxygen tank back into the cabinet beside him. He gripped the balancing bar before he remembered Xiao Xingchen’s oxygen tank.
It was left on the floor when he changed and would become a hazard once they started flying.
Song Lan sure didn’t want to get struck with it in the middle of escaping the atmosphere.
He heaved himself up and walked over to where the pilot’s wetsuit lay on the ground. Water dripped from his hair into his face as he picked up the suit and set it out of the way. He found the tank just an arm length’s away close to Xiao Xingchen’s feet. Reaching, Song Lan grasped the tank, pulled it towards him, and stood, taking care not to hit his head on the control panel.
He opened his mouth to inform Xiao Xingchen what he was doing out of the gunner’s chair but froze mid-sentence.
Xiao Xingchen’s right hand was connected to the control panel.
His long fingers were segmented and open, but there was no blood, no tissue in the spaces between. The tips of some of his fingers were inserted into ports and others were entwined with wires that usually never saw daylight.
Song Lan murmured an apology, awkwardly lifted the oxygen tank in Xiao Xingchen’s eyeline as some sort of explanation, and retreated as fast as he could back to the safety of the gunner’s chair.
He placed the oxygen tank back where it belonged and sat heavily in his seat. He ran through his checklist again – seatbelt, hatches, weaponry – check. He had no time to think about what he just saw because Xue Yang was yelling over the steam valves below and Xiao Xingchen called for liftoff and Song Lan had to keep their ship steady.
He had always been good about keeping his emotions to himself, much to the chagrin of his poor mother. His older brothers said they envied his poker face. His sisters called him cold. He liked to think of it as professional compartmentalization. No matter how he felt inside, he could keep it to himself.
No matter how shaken up he was, his hands would not waver.
As the ship lifted into the sky and left the lonely, blue world behind, Song Lan remained steady.
They made it out of the atmosphere before Xiao Xingchen raised the alarm.
“We have company,” the pilot’s voice rang out. “Three small strikers starboard and gaining fast.”
“Heard,” Song Lan and Xue Yang yelled back.
The pilot’s tone was cool, calm. It was as if he looked out the window to find rain on a day the weather report called for it.
Song Lan’s eyes darted to the quiet radar by his seat. There were no objects reported. No ships showed up on their equipment. With three strikers in range, their systems should have been blaring out some sort of warning. In a case of radar failure, usually the AI would inform the crew of any possible threats.
How did Xiao Xingchen know? Did the AI alert him alone somehow?
Even if he was… hooked into the radar systems, how could he see something that Song Lan couldn’t?
“Shields engaged. Song Lan, prepare for evasive maneuvers.”
His brow furrowed at the command.
They had three enemies on their tail who had a reason to shoot. He would have thought that they should be preparing to take a stand. At the very least, they could return some defensive fire to buy them some time to get to the gate.
But it wasn’t his decision to make.
He readjusted his grip on the bar and zeroed in on Xiao Xingchen’s reflection in the front windshield. He couldn’t see his left hand perfectly, but Song Lan could see where the pilot’s face was turned, could guess what buttons and switches he might use. With those possibilities running through his mind, he prepared to move as needed, hoping that the training time spent in the ship under Xiao Xingchen’s command would give him enough insight to be able to predict how the pilot would navigate the situation.
He heard the ships before he saw them.
Their engines hummed at a higher frequency than Union vessels, and the sound made the inside of his ears itch. Turning to the window beside his head, Song Lan could see the ships darting alongside them, trying to keep up. Each were covered from bow to stern in bright-green crystals, almost like some fairytale armor.
Xiao Xingchen increased their speed just as the nearest striker’s outer panels slid open to reveal their laser guns.
“Brace yourselves,” he called out, before sending the craft into a steep dive.
Song Lan pushed against the bar to follow the movement.
Laser fire rang out above them, and the orange and yellow flashes painted the cabin in short bursts. The Mjusi craft quickly dropped to follow them, and Xiao Xingchen pulled port and then swung up to avoid their rapid-fire shots.
A few landed but were absorbed by their ship’s shield.
Song Lan’s heart pounded as he moved the bar in time with their pilot. Each thud in his chest rang louder than the enemy’s weapons. He could feel the surge of adrenaline coursing through his arms and legs.
Xue Yang must have done something down below because the engine whined with the effort of pushing them faster, faster through space.
The rumdoa gateway came into view, and Song Lan watched Xiao Xingchen’s reflection flick on the comms mic. He could barely hear him request emergency permission to leave the area over the rush of his blood. The pilot dodged another round of laser fire while rattling off a seemingly unending code, and in the distance, Song Lan could see the rumdoa outer ring starting to spin.
The shimmer of the inner circle waved like a desert mirage as they sped towards it.
The enemy strikers dropped behind, either weighed down by the crystal outer shell that engulfed them or for fear of following too closely behind their ship and entering Union territory on accident. That didn’t stop them from firing a few more shots, which thankfully did not breach the hull.
Song Lan tightened his grip as they came up on the gate and flew through the shimmer at an astonishing pace.
The stretch sensation was quadrupled at this speed. Song Lan felt like a rubber band being pulled from one end of the room to the other, and the relief of being snapped back into place was only overshadowed by the ringing in his head. The craft shook frantically as they were spat out in an unfamiliar system.
No Mjusi ships followed.
At Xue Yang’s demand, they meandered away from the gateway to give their engines a break.
And with each passing moment that the rumdoa remained quiet behind them, Song Lan’s heart slowed.
It wasn’t long until they came up on a Union voyage terminal station – a busy one at that. Ships of all shapes and sizes cluttered the area, moving slowly looking for a place to dock. There were military crafts, pleasure cruisers, daily commuters, and merchant ships in a wide array of colors. Some had flags to show off their home planet or system pride while others had bright designs painted along their vessels.
Xiao Xingchen navigated them to an open spot along one arm of the station that catered to ships in their series, and Song Lan docked and anchored them in. He connected their hatch to the station’s connection tube and engaged the bolts which would keep the ship from floating off without them. As he did, he heard the tell-tale zips which indicated that Xiao Xingchen was no longer attached to the control panel, and the image of his cracked and open hand flashed in Song Lan’s mind.
“Well, that was fun!” Xue Yang exclaimed as he hauled himself out of the engine room. The stray hairs that fell around his face were plastered to his forehead and temples. His uniform jumpsuit was unzipped to the waist, arms tied around his hips like a belt. The black tank top he wore underneath bunched up where it was tucked, and Song Lan wondered how thin his frame was underneath all his bluster.
The mechanic went up to Xiao Xingchen, slung an arm around his shoulders, and asked, “You’re going to buy us dinner for a job well done, right?”
Xue Yang was shorter than the pilot so his arm forced Xiao Xingchen to lean a little. He smiled softly and said, “The mission isn’t over until I give our report. But you can go get us some supplies while we’re here. Just don’t get into trouble, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Xue Yang rolled his eyes. He slid his arm off of Xiao Xingchen and held his hand out until the pilot rummaged around in a drawer to place a few crumpled bills there. He closed his fist around them with a toothy grin and waved to them both as he moved around Song Lan to dart out the hatch. “See you later, losers!”
Song Lan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
When he opened them, Xiao Xingchen was standing right in front of him – too close.
“Have you been to this terminal station before, Soldier Song? If you’d like, you can explore for a bit,” he said.
“I would prefer to accompany you as you make your report,” Song Lan replied. It was eerie to see his own face reflected back in the pilot’s visor, and the shape his mouth made to speak seemed unnaturally twisted. He couldn’t tell if it was the bend of the glasses or his own warped perception of himself that made him feel so alien.
“That’s fine,” Xiao Xingchen said as he stepped around the gunner and picked up a small satchel. He wrapped one end of the strap around his waist and let the other hang over his shoulder before clipping them together. “Shall we go?”
Song Lan nodded and opened the hatch for Xiao Xingchen to step out.
The tube that connected their hatch to the inside of the terminal station was long with soft, red lights running through the floor. They pulsed in the direction of the station’s center, and as the two men walked into the brighter space, the noise of the crowd washed over them.
Living beings of all species were milling about. There were shouts and laughs and conversations in a handful of languages – some Song Lan knew and plenty he didn’t. Merchant booths were lined along the outer walls with energetic sellers haggling with customers and doing whatever they could to entice potential buyers.
There was a moving platform in the center of the large room and Song Lan shadowed Xiao Xingchen as he walked over to it.
The crowd seemed to part ways for the pilot to pass through and then closed in when Song Lan tried to follow. Several times, Xiao Xingchen glanced over his shoulder only to see Song Lan swerving to avoid someone and his lips pursed in a smile. Small as it was, the twitch of his lips heated Song Lan’s cheeks.
The two stepped up onto the platform just before it started to lift. A group of juveniles began squealing in excitement and a nearby attendant reached a long tentacle arm over to shush them. The platform rose and stopped at several floors, each just as colorful and bursting with activity. One floor held huge slabs of meat and the iron smell burned at Song Lan’s nose. Another had bins overflowing with fabrics. They passed a quieter floor with stacks of books so tall, they seemed to be holding up the ceiling.
When the platform stopped at a hazy, smoke-filled room, Xiao Xingchen gently placed a hand on Song Lan’s elbow and guided them both off and into the space. Low, jazzy music filled the air and the heavy smell of incense gave the area a cozy, sleepy feel. A crooner draped in a sparkly black wrapped garment sang softly into a handheld microphone as a small band played beside them. Living beings sat in clusters on plush cushions throwing dice or holding cards over short tables.
Xiao Xingchen walked them to a table towards the back and sat himself comfortably on a cushion, patting the one next to him.
Song Lan followed his lead and sat down. He scanned the area quickly, noting the exits just in case, and was relieved to see that no one had seemed to notice their entrance. All the players and dealers were wrapped up in their games, surely more concerned with their bets than anything else.
A Kottr dealer stepped to their table and asked in Al-Mogg if they were ready to play. With a bright greeting from Xiao Xingchen and a nod from Song Lan, they picked up a deck of cards in their large paws and deftly shuffled them. The Kottr’s voice was deep, but Song Lan wasn’t familiar enough with the species to possibly guess their gender, if they even bothered with that sort of thing in their culture.
He took the cards that were dealt to him and looked at them.
Song Lan didn’t know what game they were playing so he had no idea if his hand was any good.
The dealer gestured a paw to Xiao Xingchen and asked, “What is your wager?”
The pilot opened his closed palm to show off a small coin. It wasn’t shiny or made of any precious metal based on the way the low light reflected off of it, but the dealer’s catlike ear twitched at the sight. Long, thin pupils narrowed in as Xiao Xingchen slid the coin across the table and asked, “Is this currency any good here?”
The dealer inclined their head and placed several cards face up on the table.
They did not ask Song Lan for a bet but looked expectantly at Xiao Xingchen to continue.
The pilot switched to Ts’ekh, and Song Lan was lost in the clipped syllables of the unfamiliar language. He instead watched the two mimic some sort of card game as they spoke in soft tones, the sounds lost in the music drifting through the air. Cards were laid out and collected. Song Lan was dealt several hands and then had them whisked away.
He snuck glances over at Xiao Xingchen who seemed comfortable, at home, here. The smoke in the air hung around and gave him an ethereal glow. The long fingers of his left hand played with the coin as his spoke, only returning it to his satchel bag once the dealer collected all of their cards and wished them both a good night in Al-Mogg.
The pilot stood and waved at Song Lan to follow him, and the two weaved their way back to the platform.
While standing together waiting for their floor to arrive, Song Lan leaned over and asked quietly, “Don’t pilots usually make their reports over the comms link directly to Command?”
Xiao Xingchen hummed and replied, “Usually. But this required a bit more sensitivity than your average mission.”
Song Lan nodded like he fully understood, and before he knew it, the two were back on the main floor, surrounded by the smell of incredible food.
He followed Xiao Xingchen as he wandered from stall to stall, picking up a fruit here, a few roasted nuts there. He spent a long time looking at small jars of wrapped candies before sighing at the price tag and placing them back. The way that his fingers lingered over the small treats squeezed at something in Song Lan’s chest, and he found himself offering the shop owner a much lower price.
The elderly Fuglakyn woman screeched her unhappiness at the- “Unfair offer. Truly, was he trying to put her out of business?” – and refused to budge on the set price.
He went back and forth with her, first complimenting her selling prowess, the set-up of her table, then the lovely colors of her wing feathers, and she started to warm up, preening at the praise. In the end, Song Lan gave her a quarter of the original asking price and Xiao Xingchen beamed as the gunner placed the candy jar in his hands.
“That was amazing, Song Lan!” he said, bumping their shoulders together as they walked away. “It was like watching a professional.”
Song Lan smiled to himself. He had learned the art of the deal from his mother. She had an uncanny way of knowing just how low a shop keep would be willing to go before they actually got offended at an offer. Watching her dance around numbers sometimes with two or three other people had made him dizzy as a child.
Before he could tell Xiao Xingchen the story of his mother almost getting a loddin yak for free, there was an angry yell that bellowed from across the hall.
Song Lan turned back and quickly surveyed the area.
A small figure jumped from the top of one vendor’s stall to another, dropped into a box full of straw, and booked it in their direction, bouncing off creatures both big and small in the crowd.
Four larger figures with Union issued stun rifles followed close behind, not shy in shoving shoppers and shop keeps alike out of their path. They each had Union uniforms and were built like professional wrestlers. And the scowls on their faces implied they meant business.
Song Lan heard Xiao Xingchen mutter, “Not again…” before Xue Yang burst out from behind a small family, arms filled to the brim with food boxes and cheeks flushed pink. He grinned at the both of them and said, “Last one to the ship is a rotten Fuglakyn egg!”
And he raced past them, trailing straw in his wake.
Xiao Xingchen straightened up with a stern look on his face. “I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding,” he said. “Let me talk to them.”
Song Lan took one look at the soldiers shouldering their way through the crowd and nudged Xiao Xingchen’s arm. These were not typical guards. They weren’t yelling for the public to help stop a thief or smuggler. No, these were trained Union military members who had serious weapons. When one of them raised the stun rifle to forcibly move a civilian out of the way, Song Lan could see they had the stun settings up to the max.
There would be no talking if they were stopped.
“We need to go,” he said.
The pilot looked at the incoming soldiers, then back at Song Lan, and both men broke out into a run.
Swerving to avoid shoppers just trying to go about their business, they broke free of the crowd and started down the tube to where their ship was anchored. The red pulsing lights matched the pounding of Song Lan’s heart as the footsteps of the soldiers echoed behind them. The men were gaining fast, too fast for them to take off without a confrontation.
Halfway down the tube, Song Lan skidded to a halt and turned to face the incoming soldiers.
He heard Xiao Xingchen’s footsteps stutter and said over his shoulder, “I’ll handle this. Just get to the ship.”
A beat passed and the pilot called back, “Left foot, right shoulder, any knee,” before he continued towards the hatch of their ship.
Song Lan focused on the first guard coming towards him. He was human, tall, with short, buzzed hair. He didn’t change his gait in the slightest as he approached the gunner, rifle held forward like he planned to stab Song Lan with it. He was coming fast, angry, which made it easy to side step the weapon and use his palm to direct the muzzle toward the ceiling.
A loud bzzt erupted from the top of the rifle, and the metal panels above them crackled and darkened with the electric wave. The stun rifle at its max power could take down a furious rhinohorn beast ten times the size of a man. A human gunner wouldn’t stand a chance.
The movement took the soldier off guard and he took a step back. Song Lan continued to press in close, holding the rifle upwards and using the man like a bulky shield as the other two soldiers inched closer.
The man’s gait was slightly off kilter. It was subtle, so subtle that Song Lan might not have noticed it if Xiao Xingchen hadn’t suggested it, but the signs were there. The man favored his right leg.
Song Lan didn’t hesitate. As if it was a direct order from the pilot, he stomped down as hard as he could on the man’s left foot. The body in front of him instantly tried to collapse in on itself like a puppet whose strings were snipped. With a quick fist, Song Lan gripped the front of his uniform shirt, hanging onto the protection such a large body provided even as the man groaned in pain.
The next soldier was Umian, a people known for their elaborate cities built half in – half out of deep, glittering oceans. His tendrilled beard swayed as he adjusted the grip on his stun rifle, looking for an opening. One webbed hand steadied the muzzle while the other laid ready on the trigger.
Using his grip on the human, Song Lan barreled forward like he had a battering ram instead of a man. The forward momentum thrusted the man into the Umian’s weapon and the stun rifle buzzed to life. The smell of burnt hair crawled up Song Lan’s nostrils and he hoped the intensity of the shock was within survivable levels.
The Umian dropped the rifle in horror. Before he could step out of reach, Song Lan twisted his body to land a kick right at the joint where shoulder meets torso. The skin stretched and there was sickening crunch as the Umian cried out, clutching the shoulder with his other hand. His injured arm now hanging limp at his side.
The third soldier was of a species that Song Lan had no name or reference for. Their five legs skittered to a halt as it looked at one smoking comrade on the floor and the other left with only one functional upper limb. Its head whipped from one to the other in turn, finally settling on Song Lan.
He bounced a little on the balls of his feet, preparing to go head-to-head with a living creature with much greater physical advantages. Xiao Xingchen had suggested a knee, and there were plenty for Song Lan to choose from for his next hit.
Something in his face must have tipped off the creature that he was ready, too confident facing down a fight at such an obvious disadvantage. But with two threats already neutralized, Song Lan felt the excitement of battle rush through him.
The final soldier turned and bolted, clinging to the stun rifle with three lanky arms and shouting for reinforcements.
Song Lan eyed the Umian still standing and he flinched away from the gunner. With a gesture to the human unconscious on the floor, Song Lan said, “You should get him to a doctor if he’s still alive.” Then, he walked back towards the hatch of their ship, opened it, and stepped inside.
“Close the hatch and strap in, Soldier Song,” Xiao Xingchen called out from the pilot’s chair. He was already connected to the dashboard, and Song Lan could feel the soft idling of the engine beneath his feet. “It’s time to leave.”
Closing the hatch with a heavy clank, Song Lan checked the locks and settled in. Disconnection and take off were easy with no one rushing to stop them. And as the terminal faded into the distance, Song Lan’s blood cooled.
Stars zipped passed as Song Lan kept a lookout on both the radar and the window. It was quiet for a long time in the cabin, each crewmember focused on their own tasks. But Song Lan couldn’t help but wonder how Xiao Xingchen was able to determine the weak points of the soldiers who chased them so quickly. It took hardly a glance for him to know exactly where to hit each one.
Gunners had extensive training in the art of several kinds of close combat styles on top of regular and special weapons training. Song Lan spent countless hours sparring classmates, generals, and visiting recruits from other military branches. He knew how to search for weaknesses, how to exploit the smallest misstep to his, and ultimately his team’s, benefit.
Pilots didn’t get that sort of training, and yet…
Song Lan was pulled from his thoughts by Xue Yang hopping up out of the engine room and sitting on the edge, dangling his legs down into the glowing space. His skin glistened and the dark oil spill of his hair curled at the edges. He held some sort of flakey pastry in his hand and chewed it obnoxiously; mouth open enough that Song Lan could see the bright pink filling on his tongue.
“So,” the mechanic said through his mouthful, “did you kill ‘em?”
Anger flooded through him.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he spat out. “Those are our own. They are not who we should be fighting against.”
Xue Yang rolled his eyes and licked a few lingering flakes off his fingers. “Don’t be such a poor sport, you overgrown weed. I got you something to eat too, I promise.”
A sigh from Xiao Xingchen cut off Song Lan’s caustic reply.
“You know that isn’t what he’s concerned with. Tell him what really happened, Xue Yang.”
The mechanic looked down at his fingernails for a moment, picking at some dark, dried substance underneath one nail before saying, “We did exercises with the squads that man this quadrant’s terminal stations like two gunners ago.” His eyes flitted to Song Lan’s as if waiting to see his reaction. He kept his face blank. “The human recognized me and knew I was from Inga. He wanted to start a fight and I had my hands full. That’s about it.”
He turned to look at Xiao Xingchen and asked, “Was that good enough, Mom?”
Song Lan frowned and missed the pilot’s reply. It didn’t make much sense. Sure, there was bound to be competition and maybe jealousy amid ranks and squads, but the idea of fellow soldiers chasing after, attacking fellow soldiers outside the battlefield felt wrong. His brothers had described the military as a community, a group of individuals working towards a common goal, for the common good of the Union.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he muttered.
None of it did. Xiao Xingchen’s hand that opened and attached to the control panel, his uncanny knowing of things he shouldn’t, a squad’s reputation encouraging violence from friendlies. The weight of these confounding truths beat against his head like a flurry of punches against his skull.
Xue Yang looked at him, squinting a little, and said, “What? It doesn’t make sense that a normal guy like you was placed in the weirdo squad? You got a problem with it?” His easy grin took on a sharp edge as if daring Song Lan to agree.
He shook his head but before he could answer, Xue Yang pulled himself up into the main cabin and strode close to the gunner’s chair.
“I’ll tell you what, newbie. We really are just a group of fuck-ups. Some nobodies that the Union promised the world to in exchange for a few years of service,” he glanced over at Xiao Xingchen who was carefully watching over the scene. “Or more than a few years, I guess.”
The mechanic placed a hand on one of Song Lan’s armrests and leaned into his space. He ducked his head down in an intimate lean until they shared the same air and asked, “You wanna know what got me in this mess?”
He then dipped down to whisper in Song Lan’s ear, “I’ve killed people, and I’m not sorry.”
“That’s enough, Xue Yang,” Xiao Xingchen said. His tone was firm, final. It was a command in all but shape, and Xue Yang dragged out the moment until he listened. With a laugh at Song Lan and a sarcastic salute at the pilot, Xue Yang dropped back down into the bowels of the ship.
Song Lan unclenched the balancing bars in his hands and flexed his fingers. He knew it wasn’t unheard of for criminals to be welcomed in the military. Some of their best spies had started as thieves or hackers. But it was unsettling to know that a murderer was on his ship, that they shared meals and a tent together, especially one who could smile when talking about it.
Other than a reassuring smile from Xiao Xingchen, the rest of the journey back to the Dust Bowl was uneventful. Xue Yang refused to share any of the food he bought at the terminal station until Xiao Xingchen bribed him with the candy Song Lan haggled for him. His mood greatly improved with his cheeks full of sweets and Song Lan could have sworn the landing on the dusty, red planet went much smoother as a result.
As the others conducted post mission checks on the inner workings of the ship, Song Lan climbed down to re-dig their firepit, tossed in some flame stones, and lit them. The soft red glow warmed up the chill of night. Squatting down to blow the flames into a stronger beast, Song Lan was surprised at just how relieved he was to be back on the red planet, how reassuring it was to be somewhere familiar, safe.
Xue Yang joined him at the fire next, and he carried with him several food boxes. He set them down between them and dropped heavily to the ground. The sound made Song Lan’s tailbone ache. With a nonchalant gesture, Xue Yang told him, “Don’t let any of this go to waste or I’ll break your legs.”
So, Song Lan pulled the multitool from his belt, reached for the closest box, and dug into a fragrant rice dish.
Xiao Xingchen joined them shortly after, delicately plucking a piece of meat right out of Xue Yang’s hands to plop it into his mouth. The curve of his lips hinted at a wink, and Song Lan offered him the rest of the rice.
The three of them sat under a canopy of stars and passed around boxes of dumplings, meat slices, tiny cakes, and small crunchy eggs.
Around a mouthful of something, Xiao Xingchen suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, I almost forgot!” Then, he was standing and disappeared into the tent. Song Lan could hear the rustle of boxes and equipment being moved. He turned to ask if the pilot needed assistance but Xue Yang stopped him with a strong grip on the shoulder.
Song Lan set his jaw, ready to ask the mechanic what his fucking problem was… but the deadly look in the man’s eyes shriveled up the words in his throat.
“Look,” Xue Yang whispered fiercely, “I know gunners and I know that you wanted to argue with the command to run instead of fighting those Mjusi ships. Don’t argue, I could feel your confusion stinking up the entire ship.”
Song Lan wanted to push Xue Yang away, but he felt pinned in place. He had felt confused at the time. He had wanted to argue for combat, but he knew his place, knew his role in their team, in military life.
“You might not know because you’re as green as the mold on your ass, but Ts’ekh speaking Union soldiers are never taken hostage,” Xue Yang’s eyes searched his own. “It would be like handing the enemy a test with the answer sheet printed on the back.”
“I wasn’t briefed on a protocol for-“
“Because it’s not our protocol to follow!” the mechanic hissed. “He has explicit instructions and some sort of tooth implant if the time ever comes. So, listen to what you are told, when you are told it, because not all of us have the privilege of becoming a prisoner of war.”
Xue Yang let go and leaned back, taking on an air of laziness just in time for Xiao Xingchen to push back the tent flap and wave a dark bottle in the air.
The liquid made a fizzing sound as the pilot twisted the cap. The scent of a sweet berry filled the cool night air, and Xiao Xingchen sat in between the two men. He raised the bottle up and said jovially, “To our first mission together. It wasn’t perfect but none of us are.” He took a small sip and handed the bottle to Song Lan.
Feeling unmoored with the sudden mood shift, Song Lan lifted the bottle to his lips and took a swig. It burned over his tongue and down his throat. The strong berry flavor danced in his mouth and floated up behind his eyes. He savored the taste and handed the bottle back to Xiao Xingchen who passed it over to Xue Yang.
They passed the bottle back and forth several times watching their makeshift campfire, and Song Lan’s head felt lighter and lighter. He watched as Xue Yang splayed out, arms and legs tossed about in a sprawl that looked uncomfortable no matter how relaxed his features were. Xiao Xingchen’s smile lit up the space even more than the flickering flames of the dying fire, and Song Lan marveled at how easy it was for the man to show such strong emotions with abandon. The edges of his teeth blinked in and out of existence like a far-off star as he laughed at one of the mechanic’s asinine jokes, and Song Lan wanted to reach out and touch just a whisper of that radiance.
His outstretched fingers were caught in a gentle grip, and Song Lan’s gaze dragged slowly up to Xiao Xingchen’s visor glasses. His own blank face and hazy eyes stared back at him in the reflection, but he didn’t have the strength to pull his hand away. He needed to ask forgiveness, to reclaim a sense of professionalism, but then Xiao Xingchen leaned in and kissed the tips of his fingers.
It was so light, barely a brush of his lips, but the feather-light touch blazed through him like the shock of a stun rifle.
“Xingchen…” Xue Yang breathed, and then the pilot was turning to him. He cupped his cheek and the two kissed. It was sweet in a way that suggested it wasn’t their first, and Song Lan’s cheeks burned.
He remembered stolen kisses behind a mining cart with one of his classmates. Their knees bumping and scraping their school uniform trousers against the crumpled rocks beneath them. He could almost feel the warmth of the other boy’s tongue in his mouth even now.
Then, Xiao Xingchen was turning towards him, asked him, “Can I kiss you?”
And Song Lan could do nothing but nod ‘yes.’
It was like traveling at lightspeed for the first time. Like biting into a ripe fruit on a hot, sunny day. The feeling of Xiao Xingchen’s soft lips drowned out everything else. He wasn’t a man running from home. He wasn’t a soldier at the mercy of the Union. He wasn’t the failed son of Baixue or a socially inept recruit.
He was floating.
Xiao Xingchen pulled back and Xue Yang laughed as Song Lan tried to follow.
“Told you he liked what he saw,” Xue Yang said with his signature grin.
Song Lan was lost. Wasn’t the mechanic just at his throat? Didn’t he hate him? Was he not repulsed by the way the gunner’s eyes seemed drawn to their leader even at the most inappropriate times?
Xue Yang just laughed harder, “Look at his stupid face. You broke him!”
“I just… What…” Song Lan stammered, wanting to defend himself but entirely at a loss. “I didn’t know about the proto-.”
Then, Xue Yang was in his lap.
He didn’t ask permission before kissing him hard. Their teeth clacked against each other but Xue Yang kept him close by pulling on his bottom lip, a tug on a leash. When they finally parted, Song Lan’s head spun.
Xiao Xingchen’s eyebrows furrowed, disappearing out of sight behind his glasses, but then Xue Yang was pulling him in for another kiss while in Song Lan’s lap, and Song Lan was sure he had somehow died in that fight on the terminal station.
They finished the bottle in between sticky, slow kisses. And then Xiao Xingchen was pressing mugs of fresh water into their hands, order unsaid but clear.
The water felt refreshing, a balm to the strange heat building around their camp. It washed away the cloying, berry syrup clinging to the back of his throat and helped him feel more grounded, no longer worried about drifting off into the glittering sky above them. He felt at peace in a way that he hadn’t in a very long time.
“Well,” Xiao Xingchen started, shifting to stand up. “We should call it a night. We should be receiving new instructions now that our primary mission is complete.”
Before he could leave, Song Lan spoke up, “Wait, please.” He swallowed hard and continued, “I saw something earlier… in the ship. I… have some questions.” Song Lan glanced over at Xue Yang, uncertain how to ask to have this conversation alone.
Xiao Xingchen hesitated and then lowered himself back down. He folded his hands in his lap and looked in Song Lan’s direction. His gaze felt penetrating even with his glasses as a buffer. His voice was calm, measured as he said, “I thought you might have seen it. Go ahead and ask. I’ll answer any questions you may have.”
Song Lan once again looked over at Xue Yang. The mechanic’s expression was sleepy but his eyes were bright. They reminded him of a Natta panther, acting indifferent as they stalked their prey, pupils shining in the deep night.
“Any question you might want to ask, he already has, Song Lan. It’s alright.”
Sitting up straighter, Song Lan turned his body to fully face the pilot. He took a steadying breath and said, “I saw your hand connected to the control panel of the ship.”
A nod. “That’s right. It was connected.”
“Our ship doesn’t have an AI.”
Xiao Xingchen shook his head this time. “That’s not true. We do have an AI system, but because of the way I connect in with the control panel, only I can hear her.” He tapped his temple with a long finger. “A-Qing’s voice can’t be projected through the ship’s speakers anymore.”
“Okay,” Song Lan replied. “Does your direct connection with the AI extend outside the ship?”
The pilot tilted his head as if thinking over the question.
“No, it doesn’t. Why do you ask?”
Song Lan replied, “You knew about the Mjusi ships even though they didn’t appear on radar. You knew the weak points of three complete strangers. If it isn’t AI, how could you possibly have known any of that?”
Xue Yang snorted a laugh and parroted him, “Yeah, how could you have known, Xingchen?”
The pilot waved him off, then reached for his glasses. He slowly lifted them up and forward, sliding the arms out of the curtain of his hair. Folding them in his lap, Xiao Xingchen waited a beat before opening his eyes and facing Song Lan.
His eyes were white. Like fresh milk or icing on a birthday cake. There were no pupils, no colored irises. It was like the whites of his eyes had swallowed them whole, not even leaving delicate veins behind. There was a slight glow to them, and it reminded Song Lan of the way the Lunar Coalition’s moons shone as he left the system to his army placement - haunting, beautiful, nostalgic in some strange way.
“Blink, you weirdo,” Xue Yang said, poking at the pilot’s shoulder.
“Oh!” Xiao Xingchen smiled, “That’s right. I always forget.”
He blinked once and looked at Song Lan expectantly.
“You’re… blind?” the gunner asked.
Xue Yang groaned and muttered something about him being hopeless as Xiao Xingchen laughed behind his hand.
“No, I have synthetic eyes. My right hand too,” he raised his hand up and the joints slid away from each other. His fingers separated and his hand opened like a flower. “It’s synthetic. So, I experience the world somewhat differently than you do. It does come with some perks, like instant pattern recognition and very good eyesight.” He winked in an exaggerated manner like he wasn’t used to the motion and had to think very hard about which muscles he’d need to engage to make it happen.
“Did the military do that to you?” Song Lan asked quietly.
The pilot looked up at the night sky for a moment before responding, “Do you know about the peoples who live in the Yerknayin Mountains of the Eastern Quadrant?” He watched as Song Lan shook his head and continued, “It’s a very secluded place on a small planet with miles and miles of carefully cultivated trees and bushes to make teas and herbal remedies. Being at the top of those peaks make you feel like you could touch the very heavens.”
Xiao Xingchen smiled sadly.
“That feeling brought along religious individuals looking for enlightenment. First, from the nature around them. Then, the space above the mountain tops. By the time I was born in the community, the leader was convinced that biotechnology held the secret to achieving one’s final evolution to become one with the great energy of the universe.”
Xue Yang made a quick gesture and Xiao Xingchen blinked with effort as if remembering he needed to.
“Ahh,” he laughed, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. “I’m trying to get back into the habit of blinking again. It makes others feel more at ease. Anyway, when I was a child, my eyes and hand were an offering to the AI entity they called a deity. Something about exchanging flesh for visions of the future and making me the right hand of a new era.”
He waved that hand in the air as the joints came back together, seams closing until the skin looked like the flesh of any other man.
“The community was eventually reported to the authorities and got raided. All of us with synthetic parts were taken into custody. I guess the surgeon who did the work was a retired Union soldier. We all carried secret Himinn technology and so we were given a choice – die or serve the military as penance for our existence.”
Song Lan was stunned. He had heard stories of back-alley surgeons willing to replace limbs for enough cash. Knew that some of the grizzly miners had metal arms or legs with serial numbers shaved down to shallow knicks. The news from the larger Union strongholds always included tales of defectors waking up in their dirty inns missing a piece of military tech that had been attached to them the night before. Forcing a civilian who was modified unwillingly into service though – this was the first time he heard about something like this.
How many secrets were the Union Army hiding, he wondered.
“So,” he started. “How long are you required to serve?”
Xiao Xingchen smiled gently at him in a way that briefly reminded him of his oldest sister, a look that was meant to comfort even when the news could never be blanketed in something sweet. “The court stated that they would consider my case after fifteen years. If my record is clean enough for them, I may be pardoned. If not, my sentence would be extended for a few more years.”
A few more years, Song Lan wondered. Most mandatory military services were maximum five years, especially if the being’s placement meant that they saw actual combat. A sentence minimum of almost two decades was unheard of. Another flash came to him as he watched Xiao Xingchen respond back to a short comment from Xue Yang. It was of the pilot in a general’s uniform, wrapped in layers of purple and blue around the shoulders and draped at the back, gray wisps peeking at the edge of his temples, and his white eyes shining as bright as a newborn star.
At that moment, Song Lan knew that he would follow this man wherever he went – through training and battle and whatever mission they received next. What else did he have waiting for him at home? He couldn’t return. He couldn’t face his parents. Maybe he could make this ship, this crew something to live for instead.
“… and they’ll move the goalpost again, Xingchen. You know that,” Xue Yang said, raising his voice and capturing Song Lan’s attention. “They never free the people who are good at what they do. They don’t want you and your eyes to disappear into civilian life for a happy ever after. No, they want you to serve until they drain you of every ounce of life you have in you. Then, they’ll throw you away. I’ve seen it happen. Good men, bad records, lives treated like complete trash.”
Xue Yang whipped his head over to Song Lan and even in the dark, the gunner could see the way his jaw was set, his tense shoulders. “As soon as my contract is over, I’m leaving the military. I’m going as far away from Himinn as physically possible. I’ll burn down bases and rip ships apart with my bare hands if I have to, but I will not be anyone’s fucking pawn.”
There was something unspoken in the mechanic’s eyes as they flit over the two other men. Song Lan felt the words rise up out of his gut as he realized that the desire to follow Xiao Xingchen was not felt by him alone. Xue Yang would do whatever it took to take the pilot with him even if that meant fighting the entire Union. What would he do, he wondered, if Xiao Xingchen wouldn’t go with him? Would this headstrong, stubborn man be able to take ‘no’ for an answer?
Song Lan highly doubted it.
Before he could ask Xue Yang about his service term, Xiao Xingchen clapped his hands and stood.
“None of us are pawns,” he said, that same smile still sitting serenely on his face. “We are soldiers and we are all exhausted. It’s time for bed. Come on!”
Xue Yang’s shoulders eased like a firearm’s safety being re-engaged. He tugged at the tie holding his pony tail up and his hair fell around his shoulders. He looked older with the black waves covering the roundness of his cheeks, and he looked as tired as Song Lan felt. The whip-lash of the day pulling at his bones.
The three of them left the cold stones of the fire pit and easily danced around each other in their shared tent. Faces washed with cleansing gel, uniforms ditched for undershirts and long sweat pants, bedrolls laid out, they all flowed passed each other like drops of water in a river, each following the movement of a nature they understood intrinsically but couldn’t explain.
Settling his head onto a rolled-up shirt, Song Lan pretended not to notice how close Xue Yang’s bedroll laid next to Xiao Xingchen’s. He also ignored their hushed whispers in Ratatosk, swallowing the ugly want that threatened to crawl out of his chest. He could still taste the two of them on his lips, but in the dark of their tent, the space between them felt at once impossibly vast and not enough.
The next morning was like any other. Other than a slight headache, Song Lan woke with no trouble. He did his usual rounds around camp to make sure the site was still secure, inventoried their ammunition and checked its viability, and completed his physical training. As he ran down a red dune, dust billowing up behind him before being whisked away by the wind, he watched as Xue Yang repelled the outside of the ship with a belt full of tools, working at something or other in one panel and then another.
Circling back to the main camp, Song Lan went through his routine – push-ups, sit-ups, and a few personal protection motions. By the time the second sun met the first at the peak of the sky, he set to cleaning the few weapons their team had scattered around the tents. A grenade launcher, an older stun rifle, a machete that had definitely seen better days. He held each one with care as he wiped them with special cloths and used small rounded cotton sticks to oil any small gears.
He picked up the machete and started to slide it against a whetstone he carried in his pack for knives, when a flashing light entered his periphery.
Squinting, Song Lan used one of his hands to shield his eyes against the suns’ glare. The figure was bipedal, walking somewhat stilted. It was metallic in color from head to toe but not in a way that suggested military gear. He quickly reached for the grenade launcher and held it up in launching position so that he could peer through the scope.
It was the old android from the Inga squad outpost walking towards their camp.
Song Lan couldn’t remember its name but took note of its gait. The robot was moving swiftly but not running. Putting the weapon down, he wondered why the droid would take the time to walk to their location rather than taking one of the vehicles O’Conner drove him in on.
Stepping over to the main tent, Song Lan ducked inside to inform Xiao Xingchen of their incoming visitor. The man was buried in a bunch of maps and juggling four different specimens of lizard, none of which the gunner was sure were native to this Quadrant. He waved at him in acknowledgement, a pencil held between his lips, and reached over to pluck his visor glasses off a nearby box and slide them on.
Song Lan shook his head as he stepped back out into the sunlight. He hoped the android was too old to be a stickler for rules, because carrying live non-native species was definitely another breach of protocol, let alone the rule that forbid soldiers from housing animals or creatures as pets in barracks, dorms, or space craft. He wondered how many infractions the Yi Team had violated before he joined.
The android returned Xue Yang’s wave but did not stop to speak with him. It instead continued straight to Song Lan who grew increasingly concerned that he couldn’t remember the name his handler had used to refer to the mechanical being. Larry? Luther? He was sweating so much. Surely the android would assume it was just from the heat of the suns beating down on the both of them, right?
“Soldier Song,” the tinny voice said, crackling to life on the syllables. “I need to talk with you.”
Song Lan nodded, and opened the flap of the tent. He gestured for the android to enter, but it hesitated at the opening. Frowning, Song Lan said, “Pilot Xiao is inside. We are all ready to receive our next orders.”
The android brought its hands together and wrung them in a gesture so human, Song Lan dropped the tent flap. It gestured him closer and leaned a rusted head towards him.
“First is some… personal news,” it said. “I think you may prefer to hear this privately before I share the details of Yi Team’s next mission.”
The android continued speaking, its voice devoid of any inflection that suggested emotion but its hands fiddling nervously with the metal plates that protected the many wires hidden underneath.
“There has been a widespread assassination attempt of several of the mining moon collectives.”
Bile rose up in the back of Song Lan’s throat.
“The Lunar Coalition of Xing was attacked first and suffered the most devastating losses as a result. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Soldier Song, but your home moon was burned by Mjusi forces. Command believes that they wished to incapacitate the Union by reducing access to necessary resources.”
Throat tight, Song Lan asked, “Were there any survivors?”
The android leaned back, bowing its head almost as if in prayer, and said, “Your family did not survive.”
Cold fingers gripped at Song Lan’s heart.
He could see them all in his mind’s eye - his protective father with his booming laugh and love of strategy games, his kind mother who towered over them all and bemoaned the constant noise in the house as she laughed at the children’s antics, his older brothers who had wives and children of their own, his sisters with their struggle to fend off sneaky hands when they baked honey cakes for holidays – and he ached.
He cleared his throat and asked, “Are there any surviving Wens?”
In the final fight before he left home and joined the military, his father informed Song Lan that he would remove him from his official will. If all the older sons and his sisters were incapacitated, the rule of the Lunar Coalition would go to the Wen family, a group of outcasts who helped build the moons to the thriving community they were now. They were an innovative group who valiantly blossomed throughout any hardship. He knew that the moons would be in good hands with them, better than they ever could have been in his own.
“It is the military’s belief that some of the Wens have survived and are in hiding. To prevent chaos, the Union has stationed the Civilian Service Guard until the new leader can be located and returned.”
Song Lan nodded, relieved.
“Usually, soldiers are granted leave for these types of extenuating circumstances,” the android continued. Its hands were clasped together as if comforting itself. “However, due to the urgency of your next mission, Command has requested that you wait to take your grieving period until after the completion of your next mission.”
“I understand,” Song Lan replied.
But he really didn’t understand. How could he?
Sure, the Mjusi had encroached upon Union space before, and they were not the first to have the idea of knocking Himinn out at the knees by taking out the mining moons, but a widespread assassination?
His whole family…
Xiao Xingchen lifted the flap of the tent and stepped out. He greeted the android warmly but Song Lan couldn’t hear what he said over the ringing in his ears. He saluted them both and walked away. Xiao Xingchen’s voice called out after him but he couldn’t bear to speak. He couldn’t bear to pretend to listen.
His strides got wider and his steps faster until he was running. The wind whipped the red dust into his face and burned his eyes. He wiped at them as his boots carried him over red dunes away from the camp and away from the ship, away from the android and his crewmates. He ran until his lungs stung with each gulping breath and his calves wobbled, and he sunk to his knees into the sand.
He curled his hand into a fist and punched at the ground below him. The tiny grains cut into his knuckles but he drove his fist into the sand again and again and again.
Maybe a part of him thought he could return home after his military service, that he could be a prodigal son who found his way back after sorting himself out away from the Coalition. That he could work through what he wanted and what he thought he could give up for the sake of his family with enough time, with the chance to live freely, just for a short time. But now, there was no home to go back to. No family would be waiting for him ever again.
A part of him, a small, quiet part of him, felt relieved, and he hated himself for it.
The last remaining son of Baixue, excommunicated from the family because of his own selfish wants, could do nothing for his people or his family.
Both suns dipped down past the horizon before Song Lan dragged himself back to camp. He found Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen draped over a map rolled out over their table, and the moment he stepped into the tent, Xiao Xingchen was in front of him. His hands came up to his cheeks, one slightly cooler than the other, and tilted his head side to side.
Seeing his reflection in the pilot’s visor glasses, Song Lan squeezed his eyes shut.
“Yang-yang, would you please get the burn cream?” Xiao Xingchen asked. His tone was gentle, far too gentle for a crew leader whose gunner went awol for almost an entire day. They were just assigned another mission and here he was trying to run from a feeling that he couldn’t escape, and Xiao Xingchen wanted to treat him softly.
Xue Yang huffed but brought over a small tube. He handed it to the pilot and watched as long fingers swiped the cream over Song Lan’s warm, flushed face. He leaned back against a box of spare metal parts and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Where the fuck did you go?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.
Song Lan opened his eyes and took the tube from Xiao Xingchen so he could spread the cream over his collarbones and shoulders. The edges where his uniform tank top met skin stung terribly but the pain was welcome.
When he didn’t receive an answer, Xue Yang bristled.
“You know you can’t just disappear when things get tough, right? How can we rely on you when you run away from everything that you don’t like?”
Xiao Xingchen tried to interrupt him, saying, “We don’t know what kind of news-“
“Who cares what kind of news he got?” Xue Yang jumped away from the box and pointed at Song Lan. “He is supposed to protect our team, protect you, from the enemy, not go gallivanting around the Dust Bowl to blow off chores and training. You and I both know, Xingchen, that if I was the one who ran off this afternoon, that he’d want me crucified!”
He was right, Song Lan thought. He was absolutely right. This was unfair and unprofessional but the words died in his throat before they could hope to crawl out of his mouth. His stomach felt like a stone inside his gut and the weight of it kept him in place because even now he wanted to leave, hole up in his sleeping bag and pretend this day never happened.
“What is our next mission?” Song Lan asked, looking to Xiao Xingchen with pleading eyes.
The pilot didn’t have time to answer before Xue Yang was on the gunner. He grabbed his tank top and yanked hard. The fabric ripped as the force pulled Song Lan down to the ground. Xue Yang scrambled on top of him and grabbed at his throat. Song Lan easily blocked the move and tossed Xue Yang off him to the side.
The mechanic growled and launched for his hands, pinning one arm down and trying to capture the other. Song Lan wrestled with him, getting red dust in their hair and smeared over their uniform pants. He thought he heard Xiao Xingchen yelling something but all he could hear was the rush of his blood, the adrenaline of a fight.
He wriggled on top of Xue Yang and used his weight to pin his shoulders. The mechanic writhed and kicked his legs out, attempting to buck the larger man off of him. But Song Lan had a solid grip on him. Sharp teeth dug into his forearm, and Xue Yang shook his head like an animal putting the final blow on their prey.
Fingers gripped Song Lan’s short hair at the roots and pulled.
The pain was like a bright, blinding light that wiped him clean.
For a second, everything was quiet.
Then, he heard Xiao Xingchen’s calm voice say, “Let go of him, Song Lan.”
His hands listened before his brain even registered the words. They let go of Xue Yang’s shoulders, and he shifted his weight so that it rested more on his ankles than on the mechanic’s stomach. He watched as Xue Yang spat out his arm and bared his teeth. There was blood in his mouth and smeared across his lips.
“Go get the first aid kit,” Xiao Xingchen said, but when Song Lan tried to stand, he shook his head a little. “Not you. Yang’er will get it.”
He heard Xue Yang argue but the man wriggled out from underneath him anyway and rummaged around in a few boxes. He lost track of where the mechanic was for a bit until he knelt in front of him with the open first aid kit, and Xiao Xingchen’s fingers slid out of his hair.
Xue Yang’s wide eyes darted up to the pilot and then he set to work disinfecting the place where his teeth met Song Lan’s skin.
“I’m not apologizing,” he said. “He’s being an ass.”
Xiao Xingchen cleared his throat, and Xue Yang grumbled.
He dipped into the box and pulled out a bandage, wrapping it around Song Lan’s forearm. “You are being an ass,” he said as he tightened the wrapping. “I’m not asking for your whole life story here. But obviously something happened and it’s affecting you. Which means that it will affect us.”
Tying up the ends, Xue Yang paused. His brow furrowed, and Xiao Xingchen handed him a cup of water. The mechanic whished a gulp around in his mouth and spat it out on the ground next to him. Song Lan watched as the bright red blood swirled and dissolved in the mixture, and he felt unmoored. He didn’t want Xue Yang to stop touching him, but the mechanic was readying himself to stand and Song Lan reached for him.
He couldn’t look as he held tight to the belt at Xue Yang’s waist, just kept his head down and whispered, “Please.”
It was quiet for a moment until Xiao Xingchen asked, “What do you need, Song Lan?”
“I just… I don’t want to be alone.”
The absurdity of the request weighed on him. He grew up in a house with fourteen children. Children ran around the mining moons with the freedom of knowing their parents were in the mines day in and day out. There were tutors and nieces and nephews and visitors constantly in his home. Even in the recruit barracks, he was surrounded by other young men in the dorms, the showers, the classroom, and training grounds. There was never a moment that he had actually been alone.
And yet he felt so disconnected with the world around him.
People were so complex with their everchanging emotions and motives. As a child, he found it easier to sit back and watch rather than engage, and it was easy to blend into the background. His siblings didn’t know what he liked or disliked. His parents didn’t know what his definition of happiness was. None of them knew him, and now they never would.
Xue Yang sighed and sat back down. He held out his hands, and Song Lan looked at them. There were callouses on the fingertips and palms. There were discolored areas that spoke of long healed burns. These were the hands of a hard-working man.
His gaze lingered on the black leather that encircled the pinkie of Xue Yang’s left hand.
“Did your robot overlords forget to program you?” Xue Yang asked, exasperated. He snatched his hands back and leaned back on them instead. An air of nonchalance washed over him like a sheet laid over the dead, and he said, “People like you piss me off.”
Xiao Xingchen took a seat on top of a box nearby, but didn’t stop the mechanic.
“You grow up with everything. A nice home, a family, food on the table. Not all of us get a childhood like that. I had to fight for the scraps I got and kids lose, a lot.” Xue Yang looked down at the strap wrapped around his wrist. “I got this after a man ran over me. I’m missing most of the finger, but I never let it stop me.”
He curled the hand into a fist, “That man had been using me as a delivery boy for years, transporting illegal substances through the worst neighborhoods in Ratatoskr. He promised me everything – sweets, fancy dinners, you name it. And, stupid kid, I believed him.”
Eyes flicking over to the pilot and back to Song Lan, Xue Yang continued, “He left me in the middle of the road screaming like I was nothing. I was the reason that man had his gold jewelry and his huge house, and he acted like I was less than the dirt under his heel.” He barked out a laugh. “But I showed him. I found out where that fucker lived and I killed him. Him and all of his guards and his asshole son too.”
At this, Xue Yang looked at Song Lan straight on. “I do not regret it. But he was big news so I was taken in by the authorities. I was thrown the book because I couldn’t afford any representation and no one cared about a violent orphan from the streets being whisked away.”
Xue Yang grew quiet until Xiao Xingchen asked him, “How old were you when you were tried?”
He shrugged and said, “It took them a few months to track me down and I’m kinda guessing my age anyway. Twelve, maybe? I doesn’t really matter because they threw me in juvenile detention for life, even though I did Ratatoskr a favor and got rid of one of the scummiest drug lords ever recorded.”
The mechanic played with a piece of hair that fell out of his pony tail, twirling it around his finger. “The Union found me after a few years in detention and offered me a deal, two years of training and eight years of service for a completely clean record. I was tired of that place so it was an easy decision to make. And I’ll be out of here before you know it.”
“Which means,” Xue Yang said, leaning over to push at Song Lan’s shoulder. “We need you to keep it together. If Espinoza thinks our team isn’t performing, it looks bad on both of our records.” He gestured at himself and Xiao Xingchen. “Bad marks mean longer sentences and more missions. I’m sure even an idiot like you can understand what that means.”
Song Lan nodded.
More missions meant more danger. More chances for life-threatening injuries. For loss.
“I received some… personal news today. It will not affect my performance in our next mission. On that, you have my word.”
Xue Yang rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air. “You can’t say I didn’t try, Xingchen. You give this guy a sob story and he doesn’t even have the balls to tell you his girlfriend cheated on him while he was away. I’m sure he’ll write his mom a long, sappy letter instead whining about how depressed he is.”
Xiao Xingchen started to admonish Xue Yang but Song Lan cut him off saying, “My mother is dead.”
Saying it out loud made it much more real. It was no longer a piece of news, not just words out of an android’s mouth that passed through his human ears. These were truths. They were unchangeable truths that he would have to live with today and tomorrow and the day after.
“Several mining moon bases were attacked. My family didn’t make it.”
The air in the tent went utterly still.
“Shit,” Xue Yang muttered under his breath, tugging on the ends of his pony tail. “Look I didn’t – I wouldn’t have said all that if I’d known.”
Xiao Xingchen slid from the box to kneel beside him. He slowly opened his arms like he was afraid that any sudden movements would scare Song Lan away and gathered the gunner in close. He hugged him tightly and whispered into his hair, “I’m so, so sorry. How terrible.”
Xue Yang shifted on his feet. His arms crossed and uncrossed, fingers drumming against his forearms in erratic patterns. He asked, “When do you leave?”
The pilot let go of Song Lan so that he could look at Xue Yang and repeat back, “Leave?”
“Yes,” Xiao Xingchen replied. “You have a grieving period that should start immediately so you can handle any arrangements or do whatever is needed for closure. Will you be picked up tonight or tomorrow?”
Song Lan shook his head, “I’ve been told to wait until after the next mission before going on leave.”
Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang looked at each other.
“That is… highly unusual,” the pilot said slowly. “Did Lou say why?”
Song Lan looked at him blankly.
“Lou, the outpost android?”
Cheeks heating, Song Lan said, “Oh, Lou. No, he just said that our next mission is too urgent to delay.”
Xiao Xingchen hummed and absentmindedly ran his fingers through Song Lan’s hair a few times. The motion was comforting in an almost nostalgic way, reminding him of when one of his sisters took care of him when he had a nasty fever. His eyelids drooped, feeling suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. He vaguely heard the pilot tell Xue Yang that he would debrief them on the mission in the morning before Song Lan dropped into sleep like a rock into a pond.
In the morning, after some time to get cleaned up and changed, Song Lan was directed to sit on a box next to Xue Yang and handed a freshly brewed cup of tea in a bright cup with a floral design. He took a sip and the bitterness burned his tongue like a spiced pepper. He could imagine smoke coming out of his ears and stifled a cough as he watched the mechanic down the liquid like a shot of cheap liquor after thanking Xiao Xingchen with a disarming smile.
Xiao Xingchen’s hair was up with not a single strand out of place. His visor glasses were next to his own cup of tea and the steam fogged the lenses. His face was serious, expression distant and almost cold as he held up a small tablet and stylus. The pen-like tip tapped the screen a few times and a light blue map projected forward showing a system of planets in a series of three-dimensional shapes. Tucking the stylus behind one of his ears, Xiao Xingchen used his pointer finger to push a large sphere to the side to show a smaller one hidden behind it.
“This is our target,” he said, tapping the shape to enlarge it. “We have intel that the Mjusi are hiding the weapons that were stolen from the Woda system on this moon. It is unclear where but preliminary scans confirm that there are tunnels that run deep under the surface. There may be several weapon caches on site.”
The blue projection lines suggested a rocky surface with no vegetation, most likely a sign of a weak atmosphere and low gravity. The pilot twirled his finger and the moon spun, and the image zoomed in on a small crater in the southwest region.
“Our mission is to locate the stolen weapons and bring them back to Command. We will land in this crater so that the local sun will hide our decent in case there are any enemy forces stationed there. Stealth is our priority but if we get a hold of the cache, we have permission to make as much ruckus as needed to get out of town.”
Xue Yang’s cup made a soft thunk as he set it down near the pilot’s. He crossed one leg over the other and asked, “How large is that crater?”
Xiao Xingchen’s eyelashes lowered in an almost demure expression as he ended the projection with a swipe of his hand and replied, “Large enough.”
The mechanic groaned and dropped his face into his hands.
“Is the target in Mjusi territory?” Song Lan asked.
So far, the Union and the Mjusi had danced around each other, taking and ceding territory as needed to keep the peace that only two powerful entities could justify to their citizens. There was no official war, no documented battles. They acted like two neighboring children using their pets to steal coveted toys from each other’s yards. And they vehemently denied it if they ever were called out by protesters or governing bodies alike.
But the attacks on the mining moons were a huge escalation, one that almost defied reason.
It would be foolish for the Union to retaliate suddenly without a well-constructed plan especially if it meant sending battle squads to enemy territory. Unless they were meeting the challenge head-on, willing to look at the possibility of war with clear, unclouded eyes.
Xiao Xingchen nodded.
“The nearest rumdoa gate is run by Himinn but the system itself is Mjusi territory. It will be dangerous and if we are caught, it could be the start of a war.”
The rumble of the rumdoa gateway rattled the ship as they were spit out into neutral space, and Song Lan eased up on the balancing bar as the craft steadied out. Older gateways always made him feel like a mistreated carbonated drink, skin crying out under the pressure and begging to pop. He heard Xue Yang gagging below deck but Xiao Xingchen looked as serene as ever, left hand hovering over the control panel as he watched the scanners. He was still in his pilot’s uniform but with a battle vest and leg guards strapped around his body.
Song Lan’s protective gear was more intense, padded armor covering him from the neck down, ready to act as both weapon and shield as needed. He had several small knives strapped along his legs and the sharpened machete in a sheath slung across his back. He had a small stun rifle in each boot and an electric crossbow attached to his left forearm. He was ready for a fight.
The airspace was quiet except for a few fishing vessels hunting for the long eel-like beings that thrived in the vacuum of space, rippling on ultraviolet tides and slipping in and out of the gases that float freely from system to system. They passed a small refueling station that had clearly been built when this throughfare was more popular, a rotting relic of a time long passed, and then navigated carefully between a field of asteroids scattered about like mines.
The radar went silent as they approached and entered Mjusi airspace.
Xiao Xingchen engaged their shields and maneuvered them into position, Song Lan matching his movements with small adjustments of his wrists to keep them steady. If anyone planetside happened to look up, all they would be able to see would be the blazing light of their sun. Hopefully this would confuse anyone who might be alerted by a monitoring system long enough for them to locate what they came for and spirit it away.
“Atmospheric pressure is 3.3 bars. Wind at a minimum and air temperature is a balmy ten degrees. Gravitational pull is 11 Newtons. We’ll be entering the atmosphere in six seconds. Is she ready, Xue Yang?”
The mechanic yelled up, “Aye, Captain! Just bring her in nice and slow and she’ll be fine.”
As they approached, the burn of the atmosphere against the hull hissed along the seams of the metal panels. Twice, Xue Yang popped up with a wrench, climbed to an impossible angle, and tightened down bolts holding the ship together. But compared to the Dust Bowl, holding the craft steady with little to no wind was easy, and in just a few moments, the landing legs kissed the rocky ground.
Peeking out the window, Song Lan could see the walls of the crater tower over them. It was much deeper than the three-dimensional depiction could accurately display, and he couldn’t help thinking this must be how small a fish feels in the mouth of a shark. The sunlight reflected brightly off the rocks so that looking at them too long brought tears to his eyes. He quickly blinked them away as Xiao Xingchen engaged the anchor in case the Mjusi had any anti-gravity weapons, and the three men were switching on their atmospheric protection suits.
The electric lines woven into his suit like another layer of tiny veins hummed as they started to circulate warmth against his skin to build up under the protective gear and outer layers of his uniform. Song Lan slipped his helmet over his head and screwed it into the connectors at his collarbones, turning so that Xiao Xingchen’s deft fingers could swiftly spin the back ones into place before allowing the gunner to return the favor.
His breath fogged up the clear glasslike screen surrounding him as the system adjusted for humidity and temperature, and by the time Song Lan opened the hatch and the team set foot on the surface, he could see as clearly as if there was no helmet at all. Even with the power of the suit and the extra layers, the air was cold and the clawed underside of their boots sent small, glittering particles swirling in their wake.
They had their assignments, and with a short gesture from Xiao Xingchen, they were scaling the nearest crater wall and helping each other up at the top.
As soon as their boots made contact, the pilot took the front, consulting a map that the others couldn’t see that indicated where the tracker secretly tucked away in one of the hidden weapons pinged. Xue Yang stayed close behind him, using a tablet to flip between two screens – one for monitoring the three of their suits for any atmospheric breeches or gravitational malfunctions and another for checking the status of the ship. Song Lan kept a few paces behind them, electric crossbow activated with a charge already knocked. He swept the landscape with eyes and ready hands for any sign of hostiles as they moved quickly over the bright, rocky ground.
The planet was silent and still.
The only sound Song Lan could hear was the crunch of their boots and his own controlled breaths.
They reached their destination in just over ten minutes and stood at the mouth of a dark cave. Xiao Xingchen signed to them: Four minutes straight then left. He then pointed at Song Lan and continued: Keep watch here. We return in ten minutes.
Xue Yang brought a small stun rifle up out of his toolbelt and released the safety, holding it up in shooting position. With a few short steps, he disappeared into the deep darkness, and Xiao Xingchen followed behind, holding a soft glowing crystal bulb.
Song Lan took position with his back to the dark maw behind him. He kept his eyes focused on the edge of the bumpy horizon, looking for any sudden movements or changes to the rock formations. The tint of the helmet helped with the glare of the sun, and the gunner cocked his head to listen for any hints of a struggle in the depths of the cave.
Four minutes passed and then eight.
No movement in front and no signs of life in the back.
Song Lan took a steadying breath as the timer in his periphery ticked closer to the ten-minute mark. If the others didn’t return at the designated time, he would follow them in, prepared for a fight.
The numbers flashed ’10:00’ and continued counting up.
Swiveling on his heel, Song Lan entered the cave, steps quick but soft to mask his presence. The current on his crossbow gave enough light so that he could follow the footprints his crewmates left behind and the light gave the cave walls an eerie, blue glow.
Straight down the path, the walls of the cave narrowed and he could see the walls more clearly. Instead of a smooth rock, they were covered in thick chunks of pale green crystals. Their long shapes reached out from the dark above and dripped down the walls like thin fingers.
The only sound Song Lan could hear was the crunch of his own boots against the floor.
Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen’s footprints stopped abruptly at a wall of crystal.
Crouching down, Song Lan examined the last print visible. It was just the heel of one of their boots, the toes missing as if the wall had appeared without warning, cutting the print in half as it did. The hairs on the back of his neck raised and Song Lan stood back up, turning in a tight circle to check his surroundings.
Dark. Silent.
His eyes lingered on the crystal wall, and he considered if a stun rifle blast would be effective in blasting through it. Before his fingers could reach for the one shoved into his boot, movement caught his eye.
A pale beige blob appeared to bounce in the sea of green crystal.
Song Lan took a step back and saw two more smaller blobs growing larger and smaller in rapid succession.
Like two hands banging against a door.
Instinctively, Song Lan aimed the crossbow at the crystal, slightly to the side of who he hoped was one of his crewmates. His left hand pulled at the live electric current and when he loosed the line, a bolt of energy shot forward, slamming into the wall with a fleeting bzzt sound that echoed into the dark. The impact left a large, smoking dent in the wall, and Song Lan took aim again, feet planted a bit wider apart to ready himself for a more powerful release.
Another large beige blob appeared with two smaller ones waving in the air above it.
Relieved that he found both the pilot and mechanic, Song Lan lifted his arm to nock another current, aiming for the center of the dented crystal wall.
As he pulled back, Song Lan heard a shuffling behind him.
He spun on his heel, ready to send a blast into any Mjusi soldier who may have snuck up behind him, but something caught the side of his helmet. The force knocked him to the ground and his shot crackled up to the ceiling. Large clawed hands were on him in seconds, and his body was thrown across the cave as if he and all of his equipment weighed nothing. He only had a brief moment to realize he had failed yet again until his helmet hit the crystal hard, his skull cracking against the inside of his helmet in turn, and the world went completely black.
Song Lan woke with a pounding headache, and he squinted against the light as he quickly took stock of himself. His legs moved freely but his hands were tied behind his back by a strong cord. His cheek pressed against a scratchy rug which meant his helmet was missing. With a wiggle of his toes, he realized his boots and therefore his stun rifles were also gone.
Blinking his eyes open, Song Lan found himself not in a cave but a furnished room. Furs and skins hung on the wall and draped over intricately carved benches. Large crystals of every color of the rainbow hung from the ceiling and reflected the sunlight beaming in from the windows carved into the walls. Embroidered motifs of lizard-like creatures decorated the billowing curtains, and the breeze was sweet, carrying the smell of a flower he couldn’t name.
He sat up gingerly, head swimming briefly before the room righted itself.
“Welcome, Master Lan,” a voice said behind him.
Song Lan twisted his body with a jerk, rug gathering awkwardly underneath him. His fingers flexed to see if he could reach the sheath of the machete on his back, but it was gone. Of course, it wouldn’t make sense for the enemy to leave him alive with some sort of weapon. Looking around, he didn’t see Xue Yang or Xiao Xingchen. He hoped they were still alive.
“I wish we could have met under better… hmm,” the speaker hesitated as they sat primly on another wooden chair embedded with crystals carved into the shape of some sort of animal. They were clearly Mjusi with dark green scales covering every inch of visible skin. Pale purple robes draped along one shoulder and wrapped around their waist, the fabric pooling in elegant waves onto the floor. “The Union’s language is so difficult to remember. Situations? Past times?”
A hand with long claws tapped at a ring wrapped around one finger and after saying something in an unfamiliar language, the Mjusi grinned. Through rows and rows of sharp teeth, they said, “Ah, that’s right! Circumstances. Master Lan, it would be better to meet you in better circumstances.”
Song Lan scanned the room again and noted three windows and the door. He couldn’t tell how high up the room was and he didn’t really want to find out while sailing through the air without the use of his hands. It donned on him as he turned his focus back on the figure that his uniform did not have his name printed anywhere. Himinn soldiers did not wear dog tags and he hadn’t had his name written on the bottom of his shoes since he was a kid, and he had removed his family lineage badge from his uniform before leaving the ship to protect it from harm.
“How do you know my name?”
The mouth full of teeth somehow grinned even wider.
“Stand, little soldier. We have much to discuss.”
With a grunt, Song Lan got one leg underneath him and stood at full height. Even with being the tallest of his recruit group and a full head taller than Xue Yang, his Mjusi captor dwarfed him in size. He imagined his family looking up at this being as flames licked up their legs and he set his jaw, refusing to be intimidated.
“I am Ayaba, the Akowe Aabo, mother of the military,” With a snarl, Ayaba consulted with the ring again before continuing. “What your people call ‘Leader of Defense.’ You have been brought here at my command.”
“And my team?”
Ayaba strode towards the door and beckoned him to follow as she opened it.
“The pilot and angry one are alive. My soldiers left them on that empty shell.”
The Mjusi’s long legs forced Song Lan to keep a swift pace as they turned down one hallway and then another, passing stern-looking guards with dark leather armor covering their chests and broad shoulders. Many had long poles with sharpened crystals at the top while others had standard issue stun rifles. Workers carrying baskets of laundry and a few juveniles peeked out of half-opened doors at the pair as they passed, and Song Lan could hear whispering at their backs.
Two guards unlatched and opened a massive door, and they were outside.
The sun blazed strongly down on the pair as they continued following a cobblestone path. Long moats filled with bright blue water rushed by on either side of the walkway, and the movement carried with it a breeze that cooled Song Lan’s skin. The smell of flowers grew more and more strong as Ayaba led him under a large arch and down a few steps into a massive garden.
Flowers of every color, and some he had never seen before, covered bushes and trees, and vines crisscrossed to shade a large courtyard. A table with several chairs sat in the center, surrounded by another ditch of rushing water. Some of the long leaves stretched out for the hem of Ayaba’s swishing robes like a child reaching out to grab a lock of their mother’s hair. A deep red bud opened as Song Lan stepped by it and he saw what looked like teeth hidden inside.
The Mjusi leader gestured to a chair and took a seat.
Song Lan sat carefully, making sure to not catch his hands and balancing on the edge in case he needed to move. Even if he couldn’t take down an entire base of enemies, he wouldn’t go without a fight. He would go out on his own terms, with fists raised, knowing he gave his all to something in this life.
He wasn’t entirely sure he could trust his captor that his crew was actually safe either. If he got free, he would first search the base to see if he could find a trace of Xue Yang or Xiao Xingchen. For now, he waited.
“You must be wondering why I kept you alive, little solider. Why my people took just you,” Ayaba said, one clawed hand waved towards the gunner. “You see, the Mjusi have a proposition for you.”
Song Lan just stared back, keeping his face as blank as possible.
“You are the only remaining child of Baixue Song of Xing’s Lunar Coalition. As its next leader, we want to make a deal. Your people need protection and we need harder metals than our home planet can provide. We would be able to send a team of fighters out within the day and would be willing to work out something mutually beneficial if the other mining moons also wished for our protection.”
Anger sparked to life in Song Lan’s belly and fanned into rage as he listened. He set his jaw and asked, “Why would the moons want protection from their attackers?”
What he really wanted to say, to scream, was ‘How dare you ask for my help after destroying my entire family?’ But he didn’t want to give the enemy the satisfaction of seeing him lose his composure. He tightened his hands into fists, imaging they were curled around the balancing bars of the ship. He would keep them steady. He would keep himself upright.
Ayaba’s eyes squinted and her mouth opened and closed several times before answering.
“The Mjusi did not attack the mining moons. They are within Himinn territory. We are very careful to avoid their airspace, even if they do not share the same courtesy.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that? Just based on your word?”
“I have you on my home planet alive. My soldiers let your crewmates leave Mjusi territory alive. This is to show you that we want to work collaboratively. If my people wanted the moons so badly, we would have removed all Himinn citizens, set up a base in Xing, and already be in control of this quadrant’s raw materials.”
Song Lan shifted his feet and the fabric of his socks scratched against the dark stones below as he thought about the leader’s words. It was strange that the Mjusi would strike and run if their goal was to gain access to the mines, but that could easily be explained by fear of the Union’s retaliation. But then they decided to capture him.
‘As its next leader…’
The Mjusi didn’t know he wasn’t in line for his father’s title. And how could they know? His father’s will may not have survived the burn. The digital copy would be filed with the Union court system but it wouldn’t be made public until after the funeral rites were complete. The Mjusi were not known for their computing abilities nor were any of the military hacker groups associated with their people.
That android, Lou, had confirmed that the Wen family had fled Xing fearing for their lives. Why would they have left if the attackers didn’t know they would inherit the Coalition? How would the Union know if the records were still sealed?
Another question came rearing up to the forefront of his mind, and he asked, “How did you know which squad I was a part of? How did you know that I was the last Lan?”
Ayaba studied Song Lan’s face for a moment before answering, “The day that your ship took the rumdoa into our territory was the day of your father’s funeral. An Army general gave a speech honoring his service to Himinn and mentioned the name, squad, and team of his only remaining son, a gunner. We are familiar with the blind pilot and the smaller one smelled too heavily of oil to be anything other than a mechanic, so you were taken.”
Leaning her chin in her hand in a dizzyingly humanlike manner, Ayaba offered him a sad smile.
“You look like your mother, Song Lan. You were not difficult to find.”
He was stunned. Xing wouldn’t have had the funeral without him or the Wens. The Army was legally bound to allow him leave. Who else would have organized the service? Were his parents cremated properly? Were his siblings buried with their spouses and children? None of it made any sense.
If the Union was worried about additional attacks, why would they have publicly released his placement information? Everyone knew the Mjusi had a vast information network. The military taught all new recruits this from day one.
Ayaba’s attention was drawn away from him as a smaller Mjusi soldier came running towards them. The being’s eyes were open wide and they were yelling something in their native language. Song Lan sat up and readied his feet. He didn’t need to understand the words to know their meaning.
Ayaba stood quickly and gestured the soldier towards Song Lan, immediately turning to leave as if the conversation had never happened. The smaller Mjusi pulled a small dagger out from their belt and placed the edge at the gunner’s back, easing him to stand.
Song Lan barely had time to wonder what was happening before the ground shook with a great crunching sound, like a child jumping into a pile of dried leaves. The force of it knocked both of them off their feet, and Song Lan took the opportunity to wriggle and grab the dagger from where it skidded across the stone path. He cut the bonds tying his hands, got his feet underneath him, and catapulted into a run after Ayaba and towards the sound.
As he passed the archway and came out of the covered garden, Song Lan almost smiled.
Their ship stood in a small crater, smoke pouring from the knee joints and several trees splintered to bits underneath. Mjusi soldiers poured from the building Song Lan was held in and carried crystal-topped spears and intimidating blaster cannons. The craft wobbled as it picked up a tree trunk, ripped it from the ground, and started swinging it like a sword at the vehicles that got close.
His crew needed a gunner to man their weapons. They needed someone to keep them balanced as they escaped enemy territory. Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen needed him.
Song Lan turned to the archway and hoisted himself up, using his fingers to grip onto an edge of the reddish brick as his feet found purchase below so that he could push himself up. From one brick to another, nails scratching against rock when the ledges became frustratingly narrow, he climbed the arch, hoping Xiao Xingchen’s eyes or A-Qing’s sensors would pick up on him.
At the top, he stood tall and turned to see the ship already striding towards him. The sun glinted off the metal like a halo as an arm stretched out to meet him, and Song Lan jumped the distance to land in the center of the palm. Without hesitation, he scaled the length of the arm as Mjusi soldiers yelled and shot after him, their blasts connecting with their shield and bouncing off. As he reached the emergency hatch hidden below the shoulder joint, Song Lan heard the sound of a ship transmogrifying in the distance.
He turned his head and saw a Mjusi ship in mid-air flying towards them, engaging in Battle Mode as they approached. And as Song Lan closed the hatch behind him, the other ship’s legs slammed into the ground.
“Welcome back, Soldier Song!” Xiao Xingchen called out as Song Lan dashed towards the gunner seat, strapping in and taking each balance bar control in hand. The smile in his voice was obvious and Song Lan wanted nothing more than to kiss him.
“Thought you could get out of Yi Team that easily, huh?” Xue Yang yelled up to him.
The gunner looked down and said, “Miss me that much, Yang-yang?”
The mechanic’s sputtering became background noise as Song Lan’s attention zeroed in on the Mjusi ship.
An arm covered in crystal reached for their main cabin, but it was caught in their ship’s own hand before it could connect. Twisting his wrist, Song Lan watched as the Mjusi’s arm jerked, trying to get free. They launched a set of missiles that bounced off Xiao Xingchen’s shields and grabbed for their free arm.
Song Lan caught the enemy’s hand and called out, “Left leg, sweep!”
“On it,” Xue Yang replied.
Their leg reared back and kicked out at the Mjusi’s craft, not managing to knock them over but knocking off a large chunk of crystal. Shards scattered on the soldiers below as they tried to avoid getting stepped on while also trying to land a hit to lower their shields.
“How about we take this to the air?” Xiao Xingchen asked.
Xue Yang laughed sharply, “I thought you’d never ask, sweetheart. Song Lan, buy me twenty seconds!”
“Heard,” he replied, flinging the Mjusi ship’s arms away and taking a defensive stance, arms up like a boxer.
The enemy opened a hatch to expose their laser blaster, and Song Lan did not hesitate. The crystal they wore functioned like armor on a body, heavily protecting the most exposed parts without impeding movement. And that was their weakness.
He surged forward, one hand digging into the Mjusi’s shoulder joint while the other wedged into the blaster hatch plate. As he pulled the arm away from the main cabin, he used metallic fingers to claw away at the wires there. The enemy tried to fire a blast, but Song Lan must have gotten lucky and severed a main connection because the blaster flashed light blue before imploding. The Mjusi craft staggered back as the blast surged through their system, and Song Lan’s grip on their arm led to it being ripped almost entirely off until it dangled uselessly from the body.
Engaging their own blaster, Song Lan shot a series of cover fire to keep the other ship back and to encourage the soldiers still on the ground to retreat.
“Sheild’s at four percent,” Xiao Xingchen informed them.
The engine roared below until it shook both the pilot and gunner’s chairs. There was a whistle and the sound of levers being pulled, and then Xue Yang yelled up, “Get us the fuck out of here!”
“Happily,” the pilot said as he flicked a series of switches and twisted one of the command keys sticking out of the control panel.
The ship trembled before the boosters in the legs flared to life, and they were shooting into the air. The force of it pushed Song Lan deeper into his seat but he managed to keep his hands steady. At least, until the craft jerked hard back towards the planet’s surface.
“We’ve got a straggler!” Xue Yang shouted.
With the boosters actively trying to launch them into the atmosphere, the mechanic wouldn’t be able to use their legs freely. So, Song Lan swung an arm down, opened the palm panel, and sent out several grenades. They each bounced off the Mjusi ship once before exploding in succession, and the grip holding them down was gone.
“Shields are down,” the pilot reported. “We need to be out of the atmosphere now!”
The soldiers on the ground fired round after round from their blaster cannons, and Song Lan sniped each shot before it could make contact. The forces below became smaller and smaller as they flew higher until Song Lan was confident they were completely out of shooting range. He had just enough time to wonder why the Mjusi didn’t pull out the weapons they collected from the hidden Himinn cache when Xiao Xingchen called for them to transmogrify out of Battle Mode.
Slid back to his usual position with just one bar instead of two, Song Lan glanced out his side window and was surprised to see that they were not headed in the direction of the rumdoa gateway. And as their ship flew out of the Mjusi system and into free space, engines screaming with the effort, he noticed that Xiao Xingchen did not connect with Command about the rescue. He wanted to ask. He had so much to ask, but the fear of breaking the silence, of asking too much kept his mouth shut.
It wasn’t until Xue Yang crawled out of the engine room, skin pink and hairline damp, demanding for a meat stick, that Song Lan broke.
“Where are we going?” he asked, glancing between Xue Yang and the side of Xiao Xingchen’s face.
The pilot removed his visor glasses and disconnected his hand from the control panel to walk over and sit beside the other two men. His expression was serene, calm, and Song Lan wondered if he experienced adrenaline rushes at all. He pulled a meat stick seemingly out of nowhere and handed it to Xue Yang, who immediately tore into it, before speaking.
“First, are you alright? Did they harm you?”
“No,” Song Lan replied. “The leader treated me well.”
“Do you know why they decided to capture you?”
“They wanted to broker a deal with the Lunar Coalition.”
With a nod, Xiao Xingchen asked, “Do you trust me? Do you trust us?”
It was the easiest question he ever had to answer, and the ‘yes’ slipped from his tongue like a confession.
Xiao Xingchen reached over and slid one of their hands together, and after a moment of acting put out, Xue Yang roughly grabbed his other hand.
“Xingchen thinks the Union set you up,” the mechanic said. “That they wanted you to be captured by the Mjusi.”
“With the expectation that they would kill you,” Xiao Xingchen added.
“I think…” Song Lan said slowly. “… the Mjusi were framed for the mining moon attacks. I don’t think they killed my family.”
The pilot nodded.
“There were no weapons in the cave where you were captured, no physical tracking device at all. A-Qing and I later confirmed that the signal we were following was being pinged remotely, leading us to Mjusi territory on false pretenses.”
“The real smoking gun though,” Xue Yang chimed in. “Was that when we broke thorough the wall and Xingchen tried to report you as kidnapped, Command claimed you had been picked up for bereavement leave in the middle of a mission in enemy territory. I was furious they thought we were that stupid.”
“It was all suspicious enough that we may have conducted an unsanctioned recon and rescue mission against Command orders.”
Song Lan understood immediately.
If they went through a rumdoa run by the Union, the three of them would be detained at once. They would be considered defectors and both Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen’s sentences would be extended if they weren’t simply executed. And who knew what they would do to Song Lan if they found him alive…
“But why would you –“
Xiao Xingchen squeezed his hand and said simply, “We are a team, Song Lan.”
“And we aren’t going to give up on the first halfway decent gunner we’ve been assigned!” Xue Yang interrupted. “We’re also not letting you go without finding out what really got you into the military. I’m still betting on cheating girlfriend.”
Song Lan rolled his eyes and laughed at the absurdity of it all. Sitting in the middle of nowhere space having shed his claimed honor of serving the Union for two strange men who thought he was worth throwing everything away for – how could he not laugh?
“It actually was a woman,” he said. “I thought joining the military would be the most acceptable way to run from the fiancé my family arranged for me.”
Xue Yang’s eyes grew wide and he gasped dramatically, “So, you are the cheating girlfriend. Song Lan, you whore!”
Hitting Xue Yang in the arm as he doubled over with laughter, Xiao Xingchen stated primly, “Thank you for sharing that with us. Having said that, would you like to go home? Would you like some time in Xing to grieve?”
Song Lan shook his head.
“The Union already held a funeral service, and once they figure out I survived being the Mjusi’s prisoner, I’m sure a warrant will be sent out for my arrest for deserting. I think I rather honor my family in another way.”
Xiao Xingchen’s white eyes seemed to sparkle as he asked, “By finding out the real culprit?”
With a whoop, Xue Yang raised both of their arms in the air and proclaimed, “I only had a year left on my contract anyway! Let’s go bring down the whole military, make the fuckers who hurt your family pay, and blow shit up. You do realize this means we can do all sorts of illegal modifications to the ship, right?”
Song Lan watched as Xue Yang launched into a list of all the contraband flame-throwers and nitrogen-based engine adaptors he could pick up from a friend of a friend as Xiao Xingchen tried to hide his amusement. Both of their hands felt so warm, so real in his own. He curled his fingers a little tighter around them as if his were wrapped around the balance bars of the ship.
The future was an uncertain one, but he felt that if he had his team, if he held tightly to these two men, he could weather the storm, standing tall and steady at the helm with his pilot and his mechanic at his side.