The Spiteful (Learning.5) (Patreon)

The ship shook around us as we coasted through the martian atmosphere, heading up north toward the Spacer camp.

“So, who are you, anyway?” Jackal asked. She was a striking sort, all sharp edges and high cheekbones. Her eyes were a mottled purple, blue tainted by the reddening effect of too much time spent in martian soil. She also had the unhealthy pallor and wide-eyed expression that came with never really being out in the sun. Her helmet’s breathmask left impressions on her face, but the way she was rubbing her cheeks to try and get the lines out was kind of cute.“I’m Vree.”

“Uh, yeah, but are you, uh…” She awkwardly rolled her hands in a vague approximation. The gender question got a lot more common outside of UC space, but I didn’t really care about all that.“Ambivalent.” I drawled.  “Think of me however you want.”

“Okay.” She nodded. “And, uh, thanks for this.”“You helped me gather all the stuff I needed, so it’s just a bit of fuel I’m spending.” I responded. 

“Yeah, but…” She just trailed off. “Yeah. Thanks.”

I just nodded, carefully guiding the ship into a landing burn. The camp itself was a wrecked ship, colonial hab walls having been welded to the side, the engines long-since removed. The grav drive’s housing had been replaced with a newish hydroponics cell. Off to the sides of the ship’s airlocks, there were thermal blankets making up a few tents full of crates, and a new-ish looking hydroponics cell, no doubt full of potatoes.

There was some machinery, including an old water reclaimer and a set of solar panels on the east side.

“I’m not seeing a landing pad,” I said, “So I’ll set down on the west side.”

She just nodded as we set down. I made a note to make a better landing camera, especially if I was going to go without proper pads so often. Maybe some topography software to work with the scanners I was planning on building…

By the time I realized I was getting distracted, I’d also realized Jackal hadn’t begun to move either. She was standing silently in the ship, staring out the window at her camp. I couldn’t really read her expression well.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m not.” She said, not looking away. “I just… This place is a tomb!”I took a step back as she exploded.“I don’t know how to maintain any of this! Most of this was Viper keeping it all together, and Khan was experimenting with the potatoes, but I don’t even know what microbiome means, and…” She trailed off, calming down for a moment- like the fuel in her just sputtered out, her shoulders lowring. “Without the Rev, I’d just… be stranded here.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “Do you, uh, need a ride anywhere else?”She took a deep breath. “... I… I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I can’t stay here. That’s just… just suicide.”

I hesitated, but I had been where she was. I knew what it was like to be trapped.

“How about this,” I said. “I’ll stick around for a sol or two. Give you time to, uh, get some closure. Gather whatever it is you need, spend some time thinking. I’ll still be here later, and I’ll give you a ride if you need to get somewhere.”

She swallowed, and nodded.A few minutes later, I saw her carefully walk out of the ship, her suit back on again, while she walked about her camp. It felt wrong to keep watching, so I pulled myself away from the cockpit, and over to my worktable. It was also my dinner table, and the seat Jackal had needed to use during takeoff, but it was enough of an open space for me to start working.

Now that Jackal wasn’t here, I could break down most of the things we’d gathered. I hadn’t wanted to activate a magic recycling beam too much around her. After most of it was fully processed, my terminal chirped with a ping. I tapped it, picking up the call.

“Hey, Vree…” Jackal said.

“What’s up? Want me to cycle the airlock?”

“What do you do, Vree?” She asked. “In general.”

I paused. I wasn’t exactly sure. I knew I wanted the artifacts. I needed to dig them up, find as many as possible. In part because I wanted the knowledge, and to see the universe like I had. But I also wanted to rub them in Stroud’s face.

His ‘old boy’s club’ might pretend to be explorers, and I may have met good people like Noel and Vladimir there, but Constellation as a whole was just a shadow of its former self. Sitting in furniture made of genuine terran wood and sipping on cognac waiting for exploration to fall into their lap.

“I’m an explorer.” I said, finally. “There are some things I’m looking for.”

“Here, on Mars?”

“No, I’ve already checked everything I needed to here,” I said. “I won’t be sticking around.”

She nods.

“Do you need an extra person?” She asked.

I hesitated.

“It… It might be dangerous. I won’t be here, in the old neighborhood. I might not even be in the Settled Systems.”“I grew up in space, Vree.” She said. “I’ve fought the Crimson Fleet. Scavenged parts from a ship in zero G. I mean… You’re a great pilot, and smarter than I am. But I didn’t see a weapon on you. If you’re going to want to find some treasure, there’ll be pirates. Other spacers. Hell, even aliens. You need someone who knows how to use a gun.”

I looked back out the cockpit. Jackal was standing in front of the crashed ship, looking over the hab. She slid a digipick over a compartment. And then rapped a hand on the side. A hidden compartment opened, a small crate inside.

She was right. If I was leaving the Settled Systems, chasing after whatever the Eye might have noticed from close up, looking for these artifacts, I probably would need to fight.

The Hunter knew I would be there. He was connected to them. The idea of the Starborn had been carved into my mind by them, and I knew, somehow, that they were plural. There would be more.

“I’m… not sure I can pay you.” I said. “And, uh, other people are going to want what I’m looking for.”

“We’ll make do.” She sighs. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been paid in scrap.”

”I… Alright. Yeah. We can do this.” I said.

“Good,” She said. She took a step back from the hab, and frowned. “I… might need your help salvaging what we can here. Shame about the potatoes, but…”

Artifact Alpha- what it taught me- was already kind of fading, but I knew how to make the potatoes thrive, even with recycled parts. Even in space.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I’m sure we could get it off the ground. We won’t be able to use it until we get to a shipyard, but it should be possible.”

“I’m… not sure it’s shipworthy.” She sighed.

I decided, then and there, that if she helped, she'd need to know the truth.

“I’ve got to show you something,” I said, and got to my feet. I pulled on the rest of my suit, and picked up the Eridium mining laser.

“Yeah. Me too,” She said. I looked out the window as she opened the case… and inside was a sleek-looking particle rifle. Narrow, with blade-like sharp angles.

It was the type of gun you saw on the news when people talked about House Va’ruun.

===

“My mother never mentioned anything like these,” Jackal said. She looked at my (admittedly poor) rendition of one of the Artifacts. I couldn’t get the intricate carvings on the outer edge right, but the shape was roughly correct. “To be clear, she didn’t mention much at all. I think she didn’t want me wishing I could go there. Probably didn’t want me to consider it like some far off home.”“She couldn’t go back?”“... I’m not sure.” Jackal shrugged. “It might have been that she couldn’t take me. Or that I needed to be older or something. She wasn’t around long enough for me to find out.”“I’m sorry,” I said.“It’s fine.” Jackal looked away. “She taught me a lot about the world.”

There was a moment of silence.

“So, you’re looking for these. So are Constellation, who still exist, and these Starborn people who built a magic mining laser.”

“I did the mining laser parts, but basically.” I said. “My theory is that they discovered actual alien technology and didn’t even try reverse engineering it.”

“Aliens. Of course,” She laughed a little. Sure, it sounded ridiculous. “Anyway. We don’t have Constellation’s old money or super awesome alien technology. All we’ve got is my particle rifle, your spaceship, and a reverse engineered mining laser.”

“Yes.”“How are we going to find them?”“Well, that’s what I was scavenging for.” I said. “Constellation’s satellite has all sorts of gravitometric sensors and scanners. They’re picking up everything they can, crunching the numbers, and seeing what fits the artifacts. The problem is that they don’t have great fidelity, so-”“-Sorry, sorry,” She interrupts me. “I’m just… not following this at all.”“Right. Simple answer, they’re doing it long range. I’m going to make sensors a lot like theirs, only designed for a shorter range, and we’re going to go there directly.”

“Like walking to the store to see what they have instead of using a telescope through their windows.” Jackal nods. “Exactly.” I said.

“So. We finish salvaging our- my camp with this fancy tech. Take off, find the artifacts before Constellation, and maybe fight aliens.”

“... Yeah. That’s the plan.” I said. My chest felt suddenly tight. Jackal’s expression was all business. Like she’d already bought completely in on it. Or like she’s pushing past what she’d lost. "You see why I tried to talk you out of this?"

“Fuck that. I want to see some aliens,” She drawled.

“Alright,” I decided. “Let’s do this.”

===

A few hours later, we were mostly done with the camp.

The way Jackal had packed up the camp was… interesting. She’d clipped an old O2-pack’s power supply to the side of the hydroponics cell and duct-taped it on, to make sure it wouldn’t lose power during the jostling. I’d double-checked the hab and cockpit both, and patched up most of the damage. They wouldn’t be perfect, but they’d last long enough for us to get to a shipyard. The rest was piled up for recycling… excepting the crashed ship’s engines, which sat disconnected from the rest of the ship.

“How’d you get those off?” I gestured.“Crowbar and elbow grease.” She lied. I crossed my arms. “Nah, they’ve been loose since we crashed. Khan was reluctant to take them off the rest of the way. He wants- wanted- to fix them back up and put them back on. That’s… not going to happen now.”

“... Sorry.” I said.

“It’s fine.” She took a breath. “Viper and him always argued about scrapping what was left of the ship and paying our way aboard a new one. I never really wanted to be the tiebreaker, but… yeah.”“Yeah.”“So, If everything’s tied down, we can take off.” Jackal says.“I’m still not sure about this whole thing.” I said, finally.

“What do you mean? Hydroponics is attached to the hab, and that’s connected to the cockpit. We’ve got all the cables attached by the structural anchor points. None of the hinges are loose, and even if they are, that just means a bit of denting around the modular clasps. We can buff those out.”

I sighed.

“You’re talking about having me tie things to a rocket and lift off into space directly.”

She shrugged. “It’s not like the atmosphere is that thick. Like, you have to sort of be ready for the swing and weight to the left, but that’s what the winches are for. Once we’re off the ground, we pull those tight, and then we just have to adjust the shield profile.”

Right. The winches that had been clumsily welded to the bottom of Jackal’s crashed ship apparently had a purpose.

“Those will hold?”

“They did when we stole a ship from the UC, once.” Jackal beamed. “With the UC still in it. It was great.”

“... I’m going to double check,” I said. 

===

Heavy bricks of recycled scrap- dumped out of my Eridium laser- sat on my bed, bouncing lightly as the Arcadia hovered in the air above the spacer ship. Jackal attached the last of the winches to the bottom of my Arcadia, way too close to my thrusters for my comfort as if she didn’t care about the possible burns.

“Ready!” Jackal called. She was yelling even though Mars’s atmosphere was too thin to really hear much, so the engines must have been pretty damn loud. “In three!”“Three.” I called back, eyes darting over to the ship’s accelerometers. As the winches started to wind, pulling what was effectively a second ship into the air, the Arcadia swung precipitously to the side as the sudden, off-center weight pulled it to the side. I burned hard, taking it higher up, away from the ground in case the worst happened.I lost sight of it, as well as Jackal, but I could feel the way it was tugging and swinging.  I held my breath, waiting, hoping…The spacer’s ship directly crunched into the Arcadia’s underside. Alarms blared on my control systems, registering the damage. I held my breath waiting for a hiss, or any sign we lost pressure… But we seemed okay. Most of the damage wasn’t essential, and I’d sort of resigned to it. The habs were definitely worth the inconvenience. Now, the two ships were sandwiched together, held in place simply through a medley of very different winches. I winced. For a moment, I held my breath, hoping to see Jackal somewhere near the ground-

Jackal landed on the cockpit’s front viewport, and I jumped hard. I couldn’t see through her mask, but she waved. “It all looks good! Keep the airlock open for me, let’s get the hell off this rock!” She called. I waited, and as soon as the airlock began to shut, I started up my ship’s shield. I’d have to adjust the field’s shape a bit, but that’s child’s play.

That said, it wasn’t until I was in space, Jackal staring out at the horizon of Mars, that we both were able to relax.“Thank god.” Jackal drawled “That was lucky. I didn’t know if those winches would pull completely.”

I shot a look at her, mind suddenly full of visions of the wrong cables snapping, the sudden shift in momentum dragging both ships into Mars’s surface.

“What? Those things haven’t been maintained in like, two years,” She said. 

“... Right.” I stared for a moment, and then sighed. “Let’s just get those parts installed.”

I looked between her to the readouts on my display. I didn’t want to do an extrasolar jump to a different system carrying this much weight on cables alone, and I definitely didn’t have the credits to deal with the shipyard fees anyway.

Then again, the alternative would be trying to put this thing together in pure vacuum with nothing but anchor wires and a dream. I wasn’t that crazy.

“Alright.” I sighed. “Let’s get to this spacer station of yours.”

“Don’t worry, I know Garl. If I radio ahead and promise him and his crew some salvage, he’ll let us dock.” She nodded. “Nothing’s going to go wrong.”

I settled in for a long transfer window, and left Mars. In a few days, we’d be in a distant orbit around the birthplace of humanity, docking onto a defunct, century-old shipyard that’s been owned and maintained by spacers for decades.

“Right. Nothing.”