This ship there’s water and plenty of it, clean water come from waste and plants in the sphere. Boy says it’s so and Kinger believes him, Boy stretched out in the lookout bay, scars on his body weren’t there before, pale blue ridges Kinger ain’t afraid to touch. Kinger ain’t afraid of nothin’ to do with Boy until Boy says, “You can go back home now, if you’re wantin’ to,” and Kinger tenses right up, fear in veins like bein’ Underground again, afraid he won’t see no light.
Back home Kinger scrapped for a livin’, recycled foodstuffs and boxed ’em up, corporate drones in sharp suits, lookin’ over the counter at Kinger like he somethin’ they can’t figure out, data streamin’ dark in their eyes. Kinger beat one of ’em stupid back when he was still growin’, beat the data from his head and run for his life, blood runnin’ just as fast, blood stuck to his fists, his thighs, his mouth, seawater black and heavy, pullin’ at his feet. Kinger hopped one transpo then another and another, hopped ‘til that Guard said, “You ain’t willin’, you ain’t worth it,” and Kinger promised himself he weren’t never goin’ back.
Boy don’t mind none, just kisses Kinger like he might catch fire if he don’t, hot and open, one hand at the back of Kinger’s neck, stubble growin’ in. Boy kisses Kinger’s fingers, his wrists, his throat, sucks hard where Kinger’s blood beats strongest, blue like Boy’s own skin, makes Kinger ache, makes Kinger want to taste Boy’s scars, his seed, the heat of his insides. Kinger ain’t done this not tainted with blood and hate before, ain’t felt nothin’ so sweet as Boy’s body pressed hard against his, slick all over, everything Kinger wants tied up like a knot in his belly, Boy breathin’ heavy just like him.
This ship breathin’ heavy, too, Kinger starin’ out at worlds gone by and Boy’s arms wrapped around him, like they always been free. Boy kisses like his heart might burst, makes Kinger worry he might be dreamin’ still, might wake up curled over himself, tonguing his own slit. Underground ain’t nothin’ wasted, nothin’ livin’ anyway, and Kinger knows he got life in him still, like the engines on this ship.
Boy’s people say this ship knew Boy’s heart even before his body done its healin’, set a course that led ’em right to Kinger. Boy smiles when they tell this story, shakes his head, and Kinger knows he ain’t scared neither, Boy’s warm breath on the bones stitched into Kinger’s skin. Boy says he never needed no rattlin’ to find his way.
“Ain’t goin’ back,” Kinger says, voice gone quiet, and Boy laces their fingers together, blue and white, blue and white. “Ain’t never goin’ back,” Kinger says again. “Ain’t never goin’ nowhere without you.”
ESKHARA
by Trent Hergenrader
Trent Hergenrader is a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. His short stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, Black Static, and other fine places. His stories have received honorable mentions in both The Year’s Best Science Fiction and The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. He is also a graduate of the 2004 Clarion Writers Workshop. He lives in Madison, WI.
Hergenrader was inspired to write the story after reading news about the occupation of Baghdad, when U.S. soldiers were faced with waves of attacks by insurgents. “I found the scenario distressing because it was (and is) an impossible situation for our both our troops and the Iraqi citizens who want an end to the fighting,” Hergenrader said. “As a solider in an occupied territory, you are always a target, so how can you reconcile any desire to show the local civilians that you’re not a monster when you’re constantly under threat of attack?”
I walked the perimeter of the firestorm, watching the pale strands of grass curl and blacken, stamping out flare ups even though this alien grass didn’t burn well. You’d never have known it by looking around. I could clearly see where each of the three firebombs detonated, blackening the sandy earth and obliterating all traces of life. Firebombs are synergistically engineered, so a burst of three in a tight circle created a maelstrom of pure fire. In a matter of seconds, an area a few hundred meters across becomes a solid wall of flame, incinerating anything within the perimeter. The superheated fire burns out after a just a few seconds because it consumes all the available fuel in a snap, leaving nothing but a blackened ring of devastation. Firestorms are scary as hell even when you know they’re coming and, believe me, it makes quite an impression on the locals.
The dozen or so seditionists lay scattered like shells on the beach, their armor too weak to repel the flames. One minute they were crouched in the grass executing an ambush, the next they’re drowning in a sea of fire. They never had a chance, given the technological superiority of our weaponry, but they’d chosen to prolong hostilities, viewing us as enemies rather than visitors. Normally, resisters understand the score quickly and learn to work with the Confederation, no matter how much it may sting their pride. But this was a religious faction according to our local guide, Adriassi, and they were courting annihilation.
As our squad’s Xenologist, I submitted daily activity reports back to Confed Command. If the Confed decided to build a refueling hub here, which seemed more likely with each passing week, they wouldn’t tolerate any uprisings. Instead of a sixteen-soldier exploratory squad, they’d send a battalion of troops to wipe out any perceived threats. Adriassi said he’d passed this message to liaisons for the seditionists, but these pointless ambushes continued during our geologic surveys, and they all ended exactly the same way—with a smoldering black spot in the grass.
“Look sharp, Kiernan,” Rauder said over the com. “There could be more hostiles under cover.” She shouldered her rifle and scanned the field of tall white grass. On the far side of the burned out expanse, Marsten and Finnel squatted near a charred hunk of metal that was all that remained of an armored seditionist. As Marsten rolled the body over, a charred arm broke off in his hand. I looked away.
Regulations require us to inspect fallen combatants for technological components that may have survived the firestorm. Here we weren’t likely to find anything; aggregated Confed data suggested this planet’s tech was a generation-and-a-half behind our own. They were on the verge of some major breakthroughs, like interstellar travel, but they weren’t quite there yet. That put the Confed in a perfect bargaining position, since it meant we could trade technology for some friendly real estate on the planet, which the Confed had designated ES-248QRT4T.
As ES-248QRT4T’s primary Xeno, I’m charged with coming up with a suitable name for the place. Some Xenos simply stick with trite standbys with an alphanumeric code tacked on, but there have to be two or three hundred planets with names like “Poseidon XG34T” or, worse, the ones obviously named after girlfriends, kids, or pets. Unlike many of my colleagues, I wanted to distinguish between planets with proper names, even if finding a unique name proved to be difficult. Our translators usually rendered the local names for home planets with words as unpronounceable as the administrative codes, and with the Confed branching out to hundreds of new planets each year, it took time to find a suitable moniker for each new planet.