Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

over into its vast egg shape,
the detail of the tangle becoming lost to my blurred vision. I clung
to my bit of decking and sought shade.
    Twelve hours later, I reached an invisible radius where the
tactical beacon in my pocket started to howl with a whine that filled
my headset. My suit’s auxiliary systems cut in and I found myself
breathing fresh air.
    A little after that, a set of lights ducked out of the streaming
lanes of the fleet, and plunged towards me, growing brighter. At last
it resolved into a golden bullet shape adorned with a blue-green
tetrahedron, the sigil of free humanity. It was a supply ship called
The Dominance of Primates.
    And a little after that, as a Ghost fleet fled their fortress, the
star exploded.
     
    As soon as I had completed my formal report to the ship’s
Commissary - and I was able to check out of the Dominance’s sick bay
- I asked to see the Captain.
    I walked up to the bridge. My story had got around, and the
various med patches I sported added to my heroic mythos. So I had to
run the gauntlet of the crew - ’You’re supposed to be dead, I
impounded your back pay and slept with your mother already’ - and was
greeted by what seems to be the universal gesture of recognition of
one tar to another, the clenched fist pumping up and down around an
imaginary penis. But anything more respectful just wouldn’t feel
normal.
    The Captain turned out to be a grizzled veteran type with a vast
laser burn scar on one cheek. She reminded me of First Officer
Till.
    I told her I wanted to return to active duty as soon as my health
allowed.
    She looked me up and down. ’Are you sure, tar? You have a lot of
options. Young as you are, you’ve already made your contribution to
the Expansion. You can go home.’
    ’Sir, and do what?’
    She shrugged. ’Farm. Mine. Raise babies. Whatever earth-worms do.
Or you can join the Commission for Historical Truth.’
    ’Me, a Commissary?’
    ’You’ve been there, tar. You’ve been in amongst the Ghosts, and
come out again - with a bit of intelligence more important than
anything the Commission has come up with in fifty years. Are you sure
you want to face action again?’
    I thought it over.
    I remembered how Jeru and Pael had argued about economics. It had
been an unwelcome perspective, for me. I was in a war that had
nothing to do with me, trapped by what Jeru had called the logic of
history. But then, I bet that’s been true of most of humanity through
our long and bloody story. All you can do is live your life, and
grasp your moment in the light - and stand by your comrades.
    A farmer - me? And I could never be smart enough for the
Commission. No, I had no doubts.
    ’A brief life burns brightly, sir.’
    Lethe, the Captain looked like she had a lump in her throat. ’Do I
take that as a yes, tar?’
    I stood straight, ignoring the twinges of my injuries. ’Yes, sir
!’
     
    The Orion Line was broken. Humanity spilled into Ghost space,
slaughtering and colonising.
    But the war would last centuries more. Such is the nature of
conflict on interstellar scales.
    In time the Ghosts learned to fight back, with new weapons, new
tactics.
    Even a new breed of Ghost.

 
GHOST WARS
AD 7004
 
 
I
     
    The needleship Spear of Orion dropped out of hyperspace. Its
tetrahedral Free Earth sigils shone brightly, its weapons ports were
open, and its crew were ready to do their duty.
    Pilot Officer Hex glanced around the sky, assessing the
situation.
    She was deep in the Sagittarius Spiral Arm, a place where stars
crowded, hot and young. One star was close enough to show a disc, the
sun of this system. And there was the green planet she had been sent
here to defend. Labelled 147B by the mission planners, this was a
terraformed world, a human settlement thrust deep into Silver Ghost
territory. But the planet’s face was scarred by fire, immense ships
clustered to evacuate the population - and needleships like her own
popped into existence everywhere, Aleph Force swimming out of
hyperspace like a shoal of fish. This was a battlefield.
    All this in a heartbeat. Then the Silver Ghosts attacked.
    ’Palette at theta ten degrees, phi fifty!’ That was gunner Borno’s
voice, coming from the port blister, one of three dotted around the
slim waist of the Spear.
    Hex, in her own cramped pilot’s blister at the very tip of the
needleship, glanced to her left and immediately found the enemy.
Needleship crews were warriors in three-dimensional