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Trance. Part one.
ETA: pitched up AO3
Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.
--from "A Refusal to Mourn the Death (by Fire) of a Child in London" by Dylan Thomas
When the Andromeda blew up, the shockwave nearly ripped the Maru apart, and Trance, on her way to a rendez-vous with a bulkhead bent on giving her a concussion or worse, heard Beka scream, and saw the electronics around the pilot's chair spark and smoke like pyrotechnics--
"Harper, you little psycho, did you do what I think you did?"
"Hey, it worked, didn't it?"
It hadn't worked this time. Trance and Beka had had to drop Rosie too soon, two light-minutes from the star, and that far out, Harper's destructive masterpiece had failed to make it nova.
Trance tried to dodge the bulkhead, but only ended up striking her temple on its edge. She saw darkness, and fell into the tunnel.
She imagined that there would be a crowd of ambassadors from the ship in the tunnel, and she thought she heard one of the Nietzscheans--Genghis Stalin?--demanding to know how the void could be so full and so tactile. Dylan was trying to lead the way out, but of course, there was no way out, and Harper and Rommie were trying to tell him so.
Trance knew it wasn't really so. Death was always experienced alone.
"My Dylan is dead," said Rhade, looking harsh, and cold, and sad. She wondered what he meant, because there had been no matching genetic reincarnation of Dylan on Tarazed.
Trance heard that clearly, though, and realized it wasn't part of her fantasy, but the beginning of the true visions, so she answered him, tried to explain. "I'm sorry," she said to Rhade. "He told everyone to abandon ship, but he wouldn't do it himself. 'A captain goes down with his ship,' he said, and Harper and Rommie, they wouldn't let him stay alone--"
But by this time she was swept into her next vision. There was a boy-child, a toddler, with some dull human shade of skin and dark hair, and odd bulges along his arms. "Hello," Trance said, crouching down next to him. "What's your name?"
The boy looked at her incredulously. "You know that," he said, before he vanished.
And then there was Harper, except not quite. For one thing, his hair looked too red. Tyr wasn't quite right either; his shoulders were too narrow, and he'd died months ago--but Harper was dead, too, just now, so Trance seeing him in her future was just as inexplicable.
And he still wasn't quite Harper. Trance studied him, fascinated, the way both of them were studying her, and couldn't place the difference until Harper commented, in a voice that had his tone and accent but still sounded wrong, "Nice boobs."
"You, too," Trance agreed, completely startled, before they vanished as well.
"Come on," said a tall, slim man with blue spikes for hair. "If we don't hurry up, the Amazons are going to catch us."
Trance took his advice and ran. She ran as fast and far as she could, until her breath burned in her lungs and her hair was beating her back with every step, and then she ran out of the visions and back into her own body.
Trance found a railing and pulled herself up; her head was pounding, but that might wear off if the klaxons would stop screaming. She went up and found Beka still strapped into the pilot's seat, half of her face black and blood down one side of her body.
"Oh, good, you're alive," Beka croaked, as if she'd screamed her lungs out.
"Not for lack of effort on our enemies' part. Why are we still in one piece?" Trance asked.
"Everything's failing. We look dead," Beka replied. Her voice was more of a rasp this time. She swallowed, her head lolling to one side, then went on, "But the slipstream drive just might get us somewhere, if we don't blow up en route. You fly. I can't."
"I got hit in the head--"
"You're standing," Beka snapped in a whisper. "Better than me."
"Okay. Okay," Trance said, carefully unstrapping Beka. Trance helped her up, her arm around Beka's waist supporting most of her weight. Trance helped Beka to the back, and strapped her in a bunk.
"Use your luck," Beka told her.
"I will," Trance promised.
She got into the pilot's chair as fast as she could, fretfully muttering calculations to herself. There was no perfect possible future without somebody putting the Commonwealth together, or some other similarly uniting force, and that was gone now. Would it be terribly wrong of her to try to go back, Trance wondered.
Beka had practically given her license to. "Use your luck." Beka knew what kind of things happened when Trance's luck was applied to slipstream routes.
Trance engaged the drive, dove in, and at the first fork in the stream, yanked left hard when anyone else would have instinctively picked right.
----------
Confused yet? Good.
Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.
--from "A Refusal to Mourn the Death (by Fire) of a Child in London" by Dylan Thomas
When the Andromeda blew up, the shockwave nearly ripped the Maru apart, and Trance, on her way to a rendez-vous with a bulkhead bent on giving her a concussion or worse, heard Beka scream, and saw the electronics around the pilot's chair spark and smoke like pyrotechnics--
"Harper, you little psycho, did you do what I think you did?"
"Hey, it worked, didn't it?"
It hadn't worked this time. Trance and Beka had had to drop Rosie too soon, two light-minutes from the star, and that far out, Harper's destructive masterpiece had failed to make it nova.
Trance tried to dodge the bulkhead, but only ended up striking her temple on its edge. She saw darkness, and fell into the tunnel.
She imagined that there would be a crowd of ambassadors from the ship in the tunnel, and she thought she heard one of the Nietzscheans--Genghis Stalin?--demanding to know how the void could be so full and so tactile. Dylan was trying to lead the way out, but of course, there was no way out, and Harper and Rommie were trying to tell him so.
Trance knew it wasn't really so. Death was always experienced alone.
"My Dylan is dead," said Rhade, looking harsh, and cold, and sad. She wondered what he meant, because there had been no matching genetic reincarnation of Dylan on Tarazed.
Trance heard that clearly, though, and realized it wasn't part of her fantasy, but the beginning of the true visions, so she answered him, tried to explain. "I'm sorry," she said to Rhade. "He told everyone to abandon ship, but he wouldn't do it himself. 'A captain goes down with his ship,' he said, and Harper and Rommie, they wouldn't let him stay alone--"
But by this time she was swept into her next vision. There was a boy-child, a toddler, with some dull human shade of skin and dark hair, and odd bulges along his arms. "Hello," Trance said, crouching down next to him. "What's your name?"
The boy looked at her incredulously. "You know that," he said, before he vanished.
And then there was Harper, except not quite. For one thing, his hair looked too red. Tyr wasn't quite right either; his shoulders were too narrow, and he'd died months ago--but Harper was dead, too, just now, so Trance seeing him in her future was just as inexplicable.
And he still wasn't quite Harper. Trance studied him, fascinated, the way both of them were studying her, and couldn't place the difference until Harper commented, in a voice that had his tone and accent but still sounded wrong, "Nice boobs."
"You, too," Trance agreed, completely startled, before they vanished as well.
"Come on," said a tall, slim man with blue spikes for hair. "If we don't hurry up, the Amazons are going to catch us."
Trance took his advice and ran. She ran as fast and far as she could, until her breath burned in her lungs and her hair was beating her back with every step, and then she ran out of the visions and back into her own body.
Trance found a railing and pulled herself up; her head was pounding, but that might wear off if the klaxons would stop screaming. She went up and found Beka still strapped into the pilot's seat, half of her face black and blood down one side of her body.
"Oh, good, you're alive," Beka croaked, as if she'd screamed her lungs out.
"Not for lack of effort on our enemies' part. Why are we still in one piece?" Trance asked.
"Everything's failing. We look dead," Beka replied. Her voice was more of a rasp this time. She swallowed, her head lolling to one side, then went on, "But the slipstream drive just might get us somewhere, if we don't blow up en route. You fly. I can't."
"I got hit in the head--"
"You're standing," Beka snapped in a whisper. "Better than me."
"Okay. Okay," Trance said, carefully unstrapping Beka. Trance helped her up, her arm around Beka's waist supporting most of her weight. Trance helped Beka to the back, and strapped her in a bunk.
"Use your luck," Beka told her.
"I will," Trance promised.
She got into the pilot's chair as fast as she could, fretfully muttering calculations to herself. There was no perfect possible future without somebody putting the Commonwealth together, or some other similarly uniting force, and that was gone now. Would it be terribly wrong of her to try to go back, Trance wondered.
Beka had practically given her license to. "Use your luck." Beka knew what kind of things happened when Trance's luck was applied to slipstream routes.
Trance engaged the drive, dove in, and at the first fork in the stream, yanked left hard when anyone else would have instinctively picked right.
----------
Confused yet? Good.