Ethan

  Well… crap.

  I’d figured starships would change the equation. Turns out I was lowballing it.

  That walker back there? Enterprise-sized. Familiar and kind of wrong at the same time.

  This one’s smaller. Ticonderoga scale, give or take — nothing about it looks right, but the mass tracks.

  Works as a troop transport like a copter, and whatever weaponry it’s carrying… yeah. That’s the stuff of wet dreams for weapons enthusiasts.

  Now I get it, raising that giant dome wasn’t just for show.

  I mean, part of me knew, but that part is the memories I got when Virgil assimilated the pirates into the collective.

  Seeing is believing, or so they say.

  Dexton has got the firepower to beat the sheer weight of numbers, so I can’t use that strategy for obvious reasons.

  I wish I could go for sheer luck, but I don’t know if I can.

  History… I mean, Earth’s greatest war stories come out of incidents, people in the wrong place at the right time.

  People who pulled out a wild card so wild it actually worked a miracle against impossible odds.

  Virgil doesn’t really argue. That’s the part that always gets me.

  Just a pause; no, not even a real pause, more like the system reallocating attention.

  Then the answer comes back clean, level, completely unconcerned.

  Which doesn’t help when you look for the spark of mad inspiration.

  Luck isn’t a plan. Betting on finding the enemy with pants down isn’t a plan.

  I learned that before I learned how to shave.

  Still doesn’t stop you from wishing for it when everything else looks stacked against you.

  The city has shuffled, at least here down below.

  The ancient mechanism of the dome has drained canals, rose platforms, and ways that were denied now are opened.

  The map Virgil creates in my room, and allows me to toy with zooming and turning it, updates in real time.

  There’s an opportunity. And risk. Always both.

  The creatures — whatever the hell they actually are — are pressing harder now.

  They’ve always roamed the tunnels, and it was useful to hunt them, but it’s like the tunnels matter to them now. Or maybe they always knew, and they’re just done testing the perimeter.

  Either way, they’re coming in waves.

  That part I understand.

  They hit the outer access points first, wide, sloppy assaults meant to probe. I let them. Burned a few choke points, collapsed a junction or two, fed them just enough resistance to teach them caution. Now they’re pushing where I can ambush them, where their numbers count for less, and mine count for more.

  I may have an army of the dead, but I still have people to protect.

  Former pirates. Technicians. Scavengers. Former slaves. A ragtag group from a dozen worlds and non-human species who recognized the look of someone who gives orders that keep you alive, is also trying to help.

  Fucking amateurs trying to get killed, that’s what they are!

  They’re not SEALs, I get that. My issue is that they’re not even close to being proper soldiers.

  But they listen. And they may be the unpredictable factor I’m looking for. If they manage to stay alive, that is.

  The tunnels were never built for a city that expected to fight underground, which means that each stray shot risks damaging god only knows what system.

  This whole planet is artificial; the concept alone leaves me baffled, even after months, but I can’t wallow and try to cope with how you build a planet.

  I move because standing still feels like surrender, I fight because lives matter, and I have to win to make all matter something.

  Still, it is weird, the feeling of being in two places at once.

  I am in this re-created office, and at the same time, my body is exploring the tunnels along with an assault team of my best elements.

  I remember my son playing videogames, it feels almost like that, with the difference I am the controller and this is far too real.

  Old city. Old secrets. Better focus.

  If I were hiding something valuable, I’d put it somewhere no one bothers to look anymore.

  As I move, I catch flashes of other lives brushing the edges of my thoughts — borrowed reflexes, half-memories from the pirates Virgil folded into itself.

  I don’t like it, but I can use it. A sense of where smugglers used to cache gear. A remembered argument about an access hatch that could be used.

  A man’s frustration with a lift that jammed if you didn’t kick it just right.

  None of it is mine. All of it is useful. Doesn’t matter if it's not my skill. If I push the right buttons, the effect’s the same.

  “Energy signature detected. Low-output, persistent. Native architecture.”

  -Translation?-

  “Technology predating current city governance. Likely inactive or in standby mode.”

  Of course it is, Virgil.

  The door resists for half a second, then slides aside with a sound like a long-held breath being released.

  The corridor that follows is narrow, then widens again into a long, shallow curve.

  The walls change texture halfway through, with way less wear and a lot more dust. It’s even more utilitarian than the rest of the tunnels down here.

  I slow the team without stopping them. I concentrate enough to have the view from all my drones.

  The floor slopes down, almost imperceptibly. Drainage channels run along the sides, old and dry. Whatever flowed here once hasn’t in a very long time.

  The door at the end of the corridor isn’t a door in the way people think of doors.

  No handle. No obvious seam. Just a broad, vertical plane set into a metal arch, darker than everything around it. There’s a symbol worked into the surface, like etched.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I don’t recognize the alien symbol. That doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that some part of me thinks it does.

  There’s a console, and surprisingly, it’s barely lit. I dip into the shared knowledge pool and manage to make it work.

  The plate slides creaking and grating the hinges, getting stuck mid-way, but still, I can make drones keep it up while the group advances.

  Real, honest-to-God volume opens up like someone hollowed out a chunk of the planet and forgot to fill it back in. The ceiling vanishes into shadow, too high for my night vision to reach. Structural ribs arc overhead, massive and evenly spaced, disappearing into darkness on either side.

  It feels like a hangar in an airbase.

  The floor is marked with lines so faded they’re almost suggestions.

  Guidance lanes. Safety boundaries. Symbols repeated in a language I don’t speak, but the translator can interpret for me.

  Stand here. Don’t stand there. Loading area.

  A vessel sits at the center of the hangar, as if it were meant to be ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice.

  It’s smaller than the cruiser stalking the sky above us. Much smaller. But it’s still big enough that my brain has to adjust scale twice before it settles.

  Roughly 196 feet long, 50 feet wide and tall, give or take. Broad through the middle, tapering at both ends.

  It looks… restrained.

  The hull is a patchwork of materials; some look metallic, some ceramic, some that I wouldn’t even know how to properly describe.

  Plates overlap without visible fasteners. No sharp angles, many ornamental spines, enough that it looks like a pufferfish.

  Feels like it needs desperately to look intimidating, and at the same time remind of grandeur.

  It reminds me, uncomfortably, of riot vehicles, the kind you only ever see when something’s gone very wrong.

  -Law enforcement. Emergency vehicle- I mutter, without quite knowing why.

  No, I know whose memory this is.

  It’s Q?l?th?s’ memory.

  The thing sits low to the ground, supported by heavy struts that look more like braces than landing gear.

  Thick umbilicals snake from its underside into the floor, dead and dry now, but still locked in place. It belonged here.

  I circle it slowly, keeping my distance. The closer I get, the more details emerge. Scaring along the hull, shallow and old. Wear from proximity.

  The spikes are actually dull, like they impacted stuff. So it was used for ramming?

  The spikes are less decorative than I initially thought.

  Along one flank, a series of apertures sit flush with the surface, closed now. Not gun ports, too wide, too many, too evenly spaced. Deployment bays, maybe. Or emitters.

  The hangar floor bears the marks of repeated activity: faint depressions where weight settled again and again, polished arcs where something heavy pivoted in place. There are many alcoves and cables left in the dust. This vessel wasn’t alone.

  -Q?l?th?s, I’m gonna share my vision. Do you recall this vehicle?-

  “??????” the Elerian answers with her tiny voice from the main base area, courtesy of Virgil.

  The heck now? The sound of it being pronounced scratches something in the back of my head. Spanish, or close to it.

  Dream, maybe — if you drag the vowels hard enough. Could be a coincidence. Probably is.

  -Ok… we’re not gonna use that, let’s call it Fugu. Come to my position, you actually know how this stuff works. -

  I step closer to the vessel’s forward section in the meantime.

  There’s no obvious cockpit from the outside. No bridge windows. No external markers of its presence. If this thing was flown, it wasn’t meant to be flown by someone who needed to see where they were going. Or, worse, it didn’t need a pilot at all.

  Now that I think about it, both ships I saw so far had no windows, so probably it isn’t a must.

  I move along the port side, eyes tracing the hull. There, near what I assume is the dorsal line, is an insignia, almost worn away. A symbol of old authority stripped of identity.

  The hangar itself tells the rest of the story. Multiple access ramps and all seem sealed now.

  So, this was a rallying point with many ways to deploy the vehicles inside.

  I stop near the aft section, where the hull thickens, and the lines grow denser. This is where the weight lives. Power. Control. The heart of it.

  I get the sense, stronger here, that the vessel is dormant, not dead.

  “Ethan, this asset, much like the other we confronted, predates the last recorded planetary conflict. It will be ineffective against a human ship since the civilization that built it lost against humans.”

  I look back at the vessel.

  - My kingdom for a horse.-

  “We don’t understand.” Virgil says.

  -Forget it, if it works, it needs to carry a strike team. We don’t need a winner; we desperately lack the ability to move about quickly.-

  I picture it lifting from this berth, slow and deliberate, moving through streets that no longer exist, projecting order where chaos had taken root.

  I take a step back, then another, until the whole vessel fits in my view again. It looks inevitable and menacing.

  -Q?l?th?s, bring me the prisoner’s commander Traxak… or however it’s pronounced. I want to hear his opinion. -

  I sigh. We’re still under siege. The tunnels are still contested. Dexton still owns the sky.

  But maybe, and it’s a big maybe, I just found an insertion vehicle that will allow me to drop behind enemy lines.

  It will be like back in the line of duty; if all goes well, nothing more will happen.

  Here's my original dragons in space attempt, which won't be part of the cover contest. But I hope you can give it a try and enjoy it too.