FreeFall: The Backworlds, #7

FreeFall, Backworlds Book 7

by M. Pax

Chapter 1

His chest tightened, and Craze’s hand twitched, the thick pads of his burly fingers knocking against his muscular thigh. Either the new weapon would work and the war would with the Quassers would never happen, or it would fail, and Craze would die along with the Backworlds.

The Backworlds had to survive. He had become the most hated man in the galaxy for negotiating a pact with one enemy to defeat a more despicable one. All to give his people a chance.

The tenuous alliance with the Foreworlds had produced a plasma-based EMP, a weapon calculated to hobble the minds of their common enemy, a race of aliens with no conscience—living, sentient ships known to Backworlders as the Quassers. If the Quassers’ telepathic abilities were overcome, their insidious mind control would end. If so, their defeat would become a thousandfold easier. Then Craze could return to his normal life—a nobody barkeep eking out a living on the edge of the known galaxy instead of envoy to a questionable ally.

One cloud-like Quasser ship lurked outside the view panels of the well-armed cruise liner. The lonesome Quasser had broken off from its pack gathered beyond the star systems of human expansion and had been picked up by tracking. The alliance of Backworlds and Foreworlds reacted quickly to take advantage. Too quick? Craze wouldn’t put it past the Quassers to have devised some sick trap. Everything the aliens did smacked of a twisted, murderous psychology, a race priding itself on immense cruelty and no mercy.

Every precaution had been taken. The weapon had been placed on a separate vessel surrounded by warships. The fleet had been surrounded by a minefield. A second barrier of mines protected the spacecraft on which Craze and other diplomats observed the effectiveness of the plasma-based EMP. A proven defense against the enemy had been activated to its most powerful setting: a device which dampened the Quassers’ mind control. A secondary fleet waited in a neighboring star system. Force fields were up. Scanners had been set to full sensitivity.

Yet Craze didn’t feel safe. He stared at the Quasser with an intensity that should send it into the next universe. His efforts only produced a headache.

Made up of spheres, the orbs of the enemy vessel moved in a constant, hazy blur, almost a figment of the imagination. Craze knew it wasn’t; the sentient ship was a nightmare. The Quassers hurled death and misery on all who encountered them, doing horrible, unthinkable things. The alien ship couldn’t live. Nor the other eight hundred forty-seven like it.

On the navigation console beside Craze on the command deck, the clock ticked down. In fifteen seconds, fate would be decided. He had sacrificed everything for this one moment of maybe. The maybe had to be a victory.

The air grew thick. The acrid scent of fear wafted around the deck, planting itself in Craze’s wide nose. Silence pounded against his sensitive ear holes, despite being surrounded by twenty-six people.

On one side of Craze stood Ambassador Sanjy Strom, the Foreworld liaison, the person with whom he had brokered the filaments of the fragile new alliance. At six feet and two inches tall, she came close to matching Craze’s height. Her long, flat face held onto a stoic expression, and her steel-blue gaze didn’t waver from the Quasser, daring the alien to defy her. Yet her fingers flexed over and over.

The twitch over her brow hinted at secrets. Craze studied her, as worried about the Foreworlders as the Quassers. He couldn’t imagine how the new weapon could be modified to be used against the Backworlds, but he didn’t have the Foreworlds’ capacity for cruelty. Time and again, he attempted to think like them, and time and again he failed. Whatever the Foreworlders planned, it wouldn’t happen today.

One of Craze’s closest friends stood on his other side, Dactyl. Two of Dactyl’s elite unit were with him: Tria and Midge Marlin. They’d been summoned as another precaution. The three of them could resist the Quassers’ mind control. For an extra layer of safety, the rest of Dactyl’s crew had been shut away in isolation chambers. If all went wrong, they’d take over.

Sweat beaded on Dactyl’s broad forehead, and his long, brown hair had matted where he kept swiping. Like everyone else, a heavy knot pinched together his brows.

Do you sense anythin’ from it? Craze whispered.

Dactyl shook his anvil-like head. He had once been enslaved by a Quasser and had a telepathic connection with the evil things. Nothing, which is worrisome. It should be thinking something. There’s no way it doesn’t know we is here.

Craze had expected bad news, but hoped for his luck to turn. The universe had been dishing shit at him since his pa threw him out of the house. Six years ago. Seemed longer. Craze would have bet two lifetimes had passed since then. He rubbed at the stiffening muscles of his clenched jaw, failing at putting his faith in the firepower around him.

Out the view panels, enormous warships peppered the black ether of space. Their hulls blended with the nothingness, adding their vigilant witness to the most momentous event, the first shot of a new war. Smaller vessels hung farther back, ready to zip away and give warning to the secondary fleet.

Craze slid his hand into his pants pocket and clutched onto a round, metal badge. It was dented and pitted, badly used. Orange letters on a faded blue background read Carry On. He checked the status of the mind-control blocking device one more time.

The lieutenant manning the command console licked his lips every half second, eager to strike. His complexion was the same shade of olive as Craze’s, but he couldn’t be more than twelve. The Foreworlders insisted young people had faster responses, and speed was crucial in war.

We need every possible benefit, Ambassador Strom had said. No matter how many drams of his finest malt Craze had poured down her throat, she wouldn’t change her position on the matter.

His stores of handcrafted malt neared empty, but that wasn’t why Craze had given in. He had traded the point to attain critical research the Foreworlds had amassed on the physiology of folks immune to the Quassers’ mind control, yet the idea of children serving on the frontlines would never be okay. When they had nothing left to squabble about, he’d bring it up again.

The lone Quasser closed in on a dim planet at the edge of Backworlds’ territory that had in its orbit the unsavory moon of Wism. Cutthroats, traitors, and dastards populated the dark moon, which was always in the shadow of its planet. The murky planet had a sad ring, as if the globe had expelled its last breath in a wimpy effort at generating interest.

It had been six years since Craze had visited Wism, and on that sad moon four newly-made friends had become his family. One of those four was Dactyl. Craze took a step closer to his friend and couldn’t help but think warmly of Wism despite not wanting to set foot on it. No one sane wanted to dock on Wism.

The alien moved slowly, sometimes stopping and shifting direction, but never in a way to indicate acknowledgement of the allied ships nearby.

It’s not behaving as it ought. Ambassador Strom wore a jumpsuit the color of shadows. What good would it do? If the Quasser attacked, there’d be nowhere to hide. Everyone would be jettisoned out into the nothing to die among the uninspiring rocks of the Wism system until some future race found their bodies and the awful Quassers. Then the cycle of war and death would begin anew.

No, it’s not, but we took every precaution. Craze said it mostly to reassure himself. It was what he hadn’t thought of that worried him.

Five other Backworlders clumped beside Dactyl and his squadmates. Two were in the diplomatic corps with Craze. The other three were important BAA, Backworlds Assembled Authorities, officials. Around Strom were twelve important Foreworlders—battle tacticians, engineers, admirals, and specialists in bio extinction. Craze edged away from those folks. They were the ones who had created plagues and other dastardly weapons to annihilate Backworlders. It didn’t matter they had turned their focus to the Quassers.

The countdown reached three. Craze held his breath, his hopes cresting. They rolled in his mouth in a dry heap.

Two… one… The massive cannon mounted on the neighboring ship sent the plasma-based EMP toward the Quasser, encapsulating it, stopping it. The Quasser froze in orbit around Wism and lost altitude. The orbs of its odd hull ceased to gyrate. Not one flicker.

Dead? Craze gripped his thigh, and his living hair coiled into tight curls, pinching his scalp, slanting his dark eyes. Did it work? His whisper cracked in a dry croak.

There are no readings either way, Envoy Craze. The boy lieutenant had quit licking his lips, a smile hovering at their corners.

Craze blinked, and a warm shiver drummed in his chest. His fist balled and he shook it at the window. Take that you sons of shits—

The spheres of the Quasser pulsed. Spots glowed in its orbs. The bright spots left the Quasser and zoomed at the Foreworld and Backworld ships. The sparks flashed in glaring brilliance, roaring the Quasser’s commands—mind control on radioactive steroids.

The alien invaded Craze’s thoughts, his heartbeat, the breath in his lungs. The boy lieutenant set the ship’s self-destruct. Craze laughed.

A Foreworld diplomat ripped wires out from the science station and wrapped them around Craze’s neck. He didn’t fight, and his tongue formed the most awful words. I want you to kill me.

Chapter 2

Frickin’ ‘n shit. Dactyl lunged for the command console and threw the switch to disable the self-destruct. He knocked the boy lieutenant to the floor with a solid punch. Midge, see to it Craze doesn’t die.

For a Foreworlder, she was all right. She never minded orders, following them loyally, always putting the crew ahead of the Foreworlds. She had proved it time and again in each encounter with Quasser.

Dactyl and his team had chased the one who had tried to destroy the alliance before it began and had been able to tag it with a tracker to learn of its habits. When Dactyl’s team continued to be unaffected by its twisted charms, it had left Backworlds territory. Now Dactyl understood why it had come back: to test more powerful mental abilities. It couldn’t be allowed to live.

I’ll take care of it, Dact. Midge Marlin elbowed the Foreworlder in the nose, knocking him out. He thudded to the floor, hitting with such a force he bounced. Craze went down with him. Midge pulled a knife from her sleeve—she wore the uniform of the Backworlds—and sliced through the wires strangling Craze. He didn’t stir. What’d I do? She checked Craze’s pulse. He seems to be asleep.

Verkinns hibernate when they don’t have enough air, Dactyl said. He’ll be okay.

Dactyl wasn’t sure about the other ambassadors. Foreworlders battled Foreworlders and Backworlders. Everyone hated each other, ripping clothes, ripping flesh. A ship in the near distance exploded, taking two others with it.

Dactyl stepped between the Foreworld Admiral and a BAA protocol officer, pushing the badly wounded Backworlder away, wishing he had defied Craze’s orders and brought a stunner.

Tria, check on the Quasser defense. It doesn’t seem to be working, he said. The device had been installed on every ship and in the armor of every soldier. It had effectively severed the Quassers’ mind control. Until now.

Part cybernetic, part human, and a twin to the love Dactyl had lost, Tria wrestled with two BAA commanders. Her violet eyes brightened with the effort, the light reflecting softly on her chrome cheeks.

Dactyl hadn’t yet determined why she wasn’t affected by the Quassers’ mind control. When he had worked up the nerve to ask two months ago, her best guess had been an acquired immunity from having been stuck with one under a glacier for several centuries.

She couldn’t recall how she had become stranded in the ice and offered to let Dactyl deactivate her to examine her corrupted memories. He had let his Rainly be reprogrammed for a chance at winning the war. She had insisted and he could never say no, yet he had lost her, their years together erased from her soul as if they had never happened. He wouldn’t let her twin risk the same sort of death by poking around in her cybernetic synapses.

What Tria recalled of her time with the Quasser was that the ice had prevented a full connection, but enough of one for her to invade Quasser’s mind and learn to mirror it. Her theory had been proven at each Quasser encounter. Every time she connected with it, it had believed her thoughts to be its own.

Tria huffed, hogtying the two BAA officers who wanted to die. Maybe the device requires maintenance or new coding. She went to check.

There’s something very different about that Quasser, Midge Marlin said. For the first time, I can feel its pull. Dark and lithe with big eyes, Midge was usually immune to Quasser because of a head injury she had sustained.

Something similar had happened to Dactyl when he had served in the Minions of Dusk. On a particularly brutal mission, he had been viciously wounded and his connection with Quasser had forever changed, a blessing and a curse. The blessing was escaping the demented alien. The curse was recalling every heinous act he had done for Quasser in grave detail.

His nerves quivered, a million bad memories crawling over his skin. Being under the influence of a Quasser was worse than death. Dactyl hadn’t just killed, he had slaughtered and maimed and done so with glee. Nothing had been more important than pleasing Quasser, a sickness worse than any plague unleashed by the Foreworlds.

The boy lieutenant rolled across the floor in stops and spurts then grappled with the underside of a seat. He pulled out a laser gun, jumped to his feet, and shot laser bullets at anyone in his sights. The victims jerked; holes seared into their chests, the wounds weeping crimson, staining the composite flooring of the command deck. The sickening sweet odor of death permeated.

Craze came out of hibernation, lumbering to his feet. The boy lieutenant aimed the laser pistol at Craze.

Frick ‘n bits, no! Dactyl tackled the boy.

A race of Backworlder called a Quatten, Dactyl was only four-foot tall, but much wider and denser than most folks, especially a child. Quattens were designed to live on planets of great gravity, and Dactyl had immense strength he had to hold in check. Not the wisest decision. He was fighting Quasser, not the boy.

He’d been prepared for the eerie burst of strength, but the boy still pushed him off, flailing arms and legs in a furor, denting the navigation console with a wicked punch. Forced to unleash his might, Dactyl snapped the youngster’s arms. Another tick for him as dastard of the universe.

Sorry, kid. Dactyl frowned.

The boy didn’t quiet. He thrashed and yelped. His foot reached for the weapon. Before he touched it, Protocol Officer Bemmy of the BAA grabbed for the laser pistol. Her fingers shook and tears soaked her cheeks, but she pointed the muzzle at the remaining bigwigs. Craze marched to the front of the line, holding his arms out wide, asking for it.

Bemmy, put down the gun. Yous want to. I can see it in yous face. Reaching out, Dactyl approached her slowly.

Midge dove for Bemmy, bested her, and secured her to the navigation console. Before she finished, another ambassador leaped for the weapon. Dactyl tripped him and kicked the pistol across the deck.

The battle wouldn’t end until everyone was dead, tied up, or Quasser was sent away. The alien had the mental strength of five, and Dactyl doubted he could convince it to go. He winced and softly chanted, Go away. Go away.

Craze bent oddly, and his body jerked. He lurched toward the laser pistol. Dactyl scurried after him. Burly and tall, Craze was a hefty size and his dark, living hair lashed out, drawing blood from Dactyl’s cheek. Dactyl slapped him and grabbed him by the collar. Craze threw Dactyl down and pinned him to the floor, punching Dactyl in the head again and again.

Tria ran over, her violet eyes brimming with tears. Stop hurting him. Stop.

If Dactyl squinted just right, she was his Rainly. His heart stung worse than his head. Craze shrugged her off, toppling her over the navigation console.

Finding a well of strength, Dactyl socked Craze one good in the jaw. The device, Tria. Did yous fix it? He deflected a blow aimed at his chin and elbowed Craze in the chest. Hurry.

There’s nothing wrong with the device. Her chrome cheeks flushed pink. She grabbed one of Craze’s arms, struggling to pull it behind his back.

What do yous mean?

Dactyl held his hands up to lessen impacts. Craze’s hair whipped across Dactyl’s fingers. He sucked in his lower lip to keep from yelping.

The device is working perfectly, but the Quasser isn’t affected. It must have new weaponry. Like we do.

That’s why it lured us out here. Dactyl grunted as Craze bounced on his chest.

I’m going for a stunner. Tria raced off the bridge.

There’s only one way out of this. Midge wrestled with three Foreworlders pulling chords and wires out of the control consoles. Use your gift against the Quasser, or we lose.

The alien is too strong. It didn’t hear my suggestion over its roar of commands. Dactyl groped for Craze’s nose and pinched his wide nostrils together. The lack of oxygen did the trick and the big lug went into hibernation once again.

Craze’s tongue lolled out from the side of his mouth, and the worried lines creasing his wide, olive-toned cheeks eased, returning some of the youth he had lost in the past year.

Tria returned and shot a stunner at the bigwigs still fighting. Her cheeks were stained with tears. The crew on the other decks fare worse than here on the command deck. We have to stop this.

Wires hung out of holes in the walls. Sparks sputtered from severed conduits. The lights on the command deck blinked, and the cruise liner pitched toward the dark, ringed planet. Out the window, a BAA warship drifted into a mine.

Sighing heavily, Dactyl ran his hands over his face. He had to try again and try harder. The attempt to sway Quasser might kill him, but he had to do what he could to buy the Backworlds more time and to buy his Rainly more time. She was essential to defeating the Quassers and bridging a lasting peace with the Fo’wo’s.

Inhaling a long, slow breath, he opened his mind to the alien and peeked through his fingers at the dim moon outside the cruise liner. Among Wism’s disreputable denizens, Dactyl had found love. More importantly, he had found forgiveness in Rainly’s arms. He couldn’t allow the world on which he had found so much to suffer a terrible end.

Quasser’s increased power was evident. It snaked around the command deck, thick and cunning. A burning cold brushed against Dactyl’s fingertips. Rising unsteadily to his feet, he scratched at his temple. His tongue and lips became sticky. The Quassers die or I do. This war has no other end.

Tria’s chrome fingers gripped his and the long plastic-like threads of her white hair spilled over her shoulders, the curled ends skirting her hips. We die, not just you. You don’t stand alone. We’re a team. None of us will ever face death alone.

She was so much like his Rainly. Dactyl stared into her eyes, pretending she was. So that those we love may live another day. His fingers entwined with hers, and they marched to the front of the command deck.

Midge joined them, picking up Dactyl’s other hand. Her dark hair with reddish tints had been pulled back into a bun. A few strands had come loose during her tussles. I probably don’t add anything to your connection with Quasser, but I’ll lend you my strength. We stand together. A team.

The elite unit had come together as a true team within a week. They had followed the Quasser to an occupied Foreworld. Midge had ignored conflicting orders from her superiors to get the job done, saving her world, and saving her crew.

Appreciated. Dactyl gently pressed her fingers.

If he didn’t succeed, the Quassers would sail in from wherever they hid and decimate every population, massacring them in horrid ways, ways more horrid than the Foreworlders had ever done. And the Fo’wo’s were dastards. Their plagues had killed Dactyl’s father. Their war had taken his mother. Their decimation of the Backworlds had brought forth Quasser. The Foreworlds would end too, but Dactyl wasn’t concerned about them.

He shut his eyes tightly and let the warmth of the two gals beside him settle over his nerves. Tria’s thoughts hummed like a spring day. Midge’s thoughts remained closed off, but he could sense her support and her persistent strength.

The Quasser’s mind screamed, pounding like super gravity, yanking at Dactyl’s resistance. Dactyl gasped. This was suicide.

I’m here, Tria said.

She sounded like Rainly. He concentrated on the joyous years he and his gal had shared. He could see Rainly’s beaming face and the pleasant evenings they had spent with friends and bowls of thin rootbagger stew. They’d been hungry and broke, but his life would never be so good again. Her love surrounded him and was more potent than the entire swarm of Quassers. He opened his mind further to the onslaught of the alien’s telepathy. Quasser hit like twelve large moons. Falling to his knees, Dactyl growled. Yous do not control me.

Beside him, Midge whispered, You do not control me.

Tria’s mind sang, You do not control me.

The Quasser wasn’t daunted. Destroy the ships. Destroy the humans. There was a lilt to its thoughts, a smugness.

Fly to the sun. Warm youself in the sun. Every thought ignited body-quaking pain. Dactyl no longer felt the cruise liner under his feet or the stale air. He felt only agony, until the friendly presence of Tria shoved at Dactyl’s mind, letting him continue to chant, Fly to the sun.

The Quasser shrieked louder. Searing twinges pulled taut inside Dactyl’s head like flaming strings. He tasted iron on his tongue.

Chapter 3

Pulse thumping, thoughts whirling, Midge Marlin tore off a sleeve of her uniform and dabbed at the blood oozing from Dactyl’s nose. You can’t die. She meant to whisper, but her words burst out, rattling her nerves. Dactyl could be the only hope against the Quassers. He was the only strategy to have an effect so far. A Backshit, she said mainly to herself. Why had she joined his team? What did she think she’d gain?

Survival, she exhaled in a low whisper. The Backshits held the answer as to how to save her people. Once the Quassers were dead. Dactyl was pivotal in making sure the Quassers never haunted the galaxy again.

His value in the war was one thing, but he’d also become a friend. His fearlessness and unswerving loyalty to those he cared about had earned Midge’s respect. She didn’t understand the love he waved around, no self-respecting Foreworlder would, but it lent him strength. Midge aimed to acquire love if she could. He had told of the various kinds. The kind among tight-knit friends had an appeal. Anything that made her stronger was something she wanted.

Dactyl convulsed on the floor. Midge didn’t let go of him, squeezing his hand as tightly as she could. Hang on, she said. You must keep Quasser on the hook. You must save what remains of humanity. Or everything that ever was, everything we ever were, will amount to nothing.

Two of the diplomats stirred on the floor. They crawled toward each other, growling, then stopped, blinking dumbly at one another. Whatever Dactyl thought to the alien had made it hesitate. In war, hesitation was enough.

Tria, stay with Dactyl. Keep him well. I’m going to get the alien away from here.

The Cytran’s violet eyes dimmed. Where are you going, Midge Marlin? For some