A New Home

by Alexander Morrall

Paru set foot on the surface of a new world, a companion padding at her side. Robotic limbs worked in seamless unity, achieving quadrupedal mastery over rough, rocky terrain. His owner’s treaded boots had far less success, disturbing rocks as she cursed in vain. The science team would not be happy. She picked her way across the low gravity environment of Fornacis 22. It was a planet that orbited a solar twin, merely 42 light years from Earth. Here, Paru hoped to make a fresh start for her people, refugees of space, pursued by the empire and other, crueler creatures.

“We still haven’t finished scanning the surrounding area,” Executive Officer Kira chimed in Paru’s helmet.

“We’ve been travelling a wormhole for thirty-one years,” Paru returned. “I needed some... fresh air.” She laughed at the thought, looking up at the stars that shone through the planet’s thin atmosphere, incapable of providing enough oxygen for respiration.

“This is no time for jokes,” Kira berated. “There could be Chaff out there.”

“They couldn’t have followed us this far.” Paru dismissed the notion. Mention of the accursed name sent a chill through her spine. “None of the probes sent from Earth had dark matter drives, so none of the Chaff will, either. They’ve upgraded themselves significantly since achieving sentience, but none of our analysis indicates they’ve achieved lightspeed travel.”

“I hope you’re right. That suit is expensive, and so is that canine unit.”

“That’s enough, XO.” Paru turned off comms, smiling at Lupus. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

When the expeditionary mission set out to find a new planet suitable for colonization, Paru had been thirty-three. Now she was sixty-four, and she felt it. Decades spent in wormhole transit had thinned her bones, wasted her muscles, and shriveled her lungs. There was no fresh air here, but there was open sky and room to move, comforts not afforded her for so long. Though every crew member tested peak intelligence, wellbeing, and fitness scores, some didn’t survive the voyage. She knew what she signed up for, how unnatural it would be. Stepping foot on this planet, their longed-for destination, was everything to her.

The captain mounted a low ridge with her robotic canine at her side. Lupus looked up at her with longing. She frowned, knowing he was programmed to live off the needs of humans. Sadly, he would be without purpose if there was no human to serve or protect. Paru was his human, and though Lupus was steel and silicon, she loved him as if he were flesh and bone. His core computer possessed neural receptors analyzed her facial patterns, verbal tones, and emotional output. Stroking his triangular steel head and joined to his ovular body with titanium cables, she felt bound to him, knowing he was a calculated, metal creature. Angling his amorphous nose in several directions at once, Lupus surveyed an uneven landscape. His scans uploaded elements that flowed across her visor: aluminum, nitrogen, iron.

“Looks like everything we’ll need,” Paru reported back to Kira. “Once we erect habitats, we just might call this place home.”

“The solar winds of the nearby sun are unsettling, but you could be right.”

Paru reflected on the voyage. She owed to Kira’s loyalty her survival through two attempted mutinies. Twice her crew demanded they drop out of the wormhole when passing potentially habitable planets. Diversions were not part of the mission, so mutineers had been jettisoned into space. Some were close friends, some Paru’s lovers.

People got close to her to take control. She’d enjoyed seeing only a few get sucked out into space. Looking at Lupus, she knew her second, Kira, may have kept her alive, but Lupus kept life worth living. Ever close at hand and always taking her side in arguments. A few mutineers had even suffered his titanium bite.

The world they suffered so much for was unremarkable. Maybe there was ice a few klicks down, but it would take five years for industrial drills to arrive from the wormhole. Fornacis 22 had been chosen by the Founders, twelve men who left the empire over one thousand years ago. They made a new home on Tyras, where Paru was born. Rare metals were used to construct cities, factories and new lives. Those same metals brought the Chaff, sentient probes who scoured Canis Major for titanium, iridium and plutonium. The Outworlders, her people, became refugees again.

Paru missed Tyras and her mother, who pushed her to captain the expedition. When they fled the empire and founded their colony, women never had such roles. Over centuries, they’d risen to govern provinces on Tyras, but no authority could surpass that of the Founders. Though the Founders were long dead, their consciousnesses ruled still from the Mindbank, summoned each month to give them direction. Supposedly, their faculties had not degraded.

Continuing her observation, Paru climbed a hill to scan the nearby chasm. Twelve klicks deep, it would offer vast geological data for Lupus. Once again, he mounted the razor-edged rocks with ease. A snake-like tongue filled with sensors lolled as he looked back at her.

Paru grunted, forcing atrophied legs to conquer the hill while she gazed up at an ocean of stars. The galaxy that opened wide before her was termed the Inner Ring, but it was still well outside empire space. When she missed a foothold, Lupus looked to her again, sensors whirring.

From their high vantage point they peered down into the mirrored blackness of the chasm below. Lupus sat back on carbon fiber haunches, jaw closed, ears pricked and eyes forward to absorb his surroundings. Their surroundings were silent as death and the vacuum of space. Paru sat with her eyes to the stars once more and dreamed of a field of habitats covering the plain below.

A great whistling rose from the canyon, and Paru’s boots lifted off the ground. Lupus was at her side in an instant, clamping his legs over her ankles so that she did not drift upwards. Stones began to hover, and a terrible crash echoed as a rockslide poured into the chasm. Light pierced Paru’s visor, and heat baked her suit. Musky light washed over the sky, and Paru’s frame rattled as she gripped the rocks below, praying she would not be launched over the chasm. Lupus set his jaws over her leg, gently holding on as she sailed in the wind.

Moments later the gust passed, and Paru drifted back to sit, breathing in ragged gasps.

“Capt-n!” Kira garbled over the comms. “That flare came out of no- be more coming. You need- get back- ship now.”

“Kira,” Paru shook her head buzzing with static, her hand resting on Lupus’ neck. “Lupus needs to complete his scan. If that chasm fills with rock, we’ll lose years of data.” She looked to the robotic canine and nodded. Lupus whimpered as he sat back, ears up again.

Paru watched the elements flash over her eyes, but when they came to completion breath froze in her throat: Plutonium, iridium, and titanium. “Scan complete. Returning to ship.”

Paru turned to make her way back down the hill, Lupus at her side. This time he wouldn’t go first but followed her descent. Another tremor shook the hill. Lupus bolted forward, planting firm legs to make sure Paru did not tumble down. Once it abated, they continued, descending the hill. Returning her gaze to the stars above, Paru felt dread where she once felt wonder. At the edge of the known galaxy, everything was dangerous.

They crossed the craggy plain, ship now in sight. Returning to its steely confines was becoming more and more appealing as they closed the distance.

“We see you, Paru,” Kira spoke. “Almost there. Did you sustain any damage?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. Lupus kept me from a spill into the black.”

“He deserves a promotion. Or at least an oil bath.”

The boarding platform lowered and, when they had crossed the last ten meters, Lupus stopped. Paru looked over her shoulder to see him poised before a mound of rock.

“Lupus,” she sighed, “the mission is over. We’ve scanned enough...”

From behind the mound slithered a glossy dome, erected on six clawed appendages. Swaying like a cobra, the creature approached Lupus, who stood his ground. He issued a grating of gears that could be considered a growl.

“Chaff sighted!” Paru called. “SecTeam...”

Balling its appendages like a spring, the Chaff hurtled toward Lupus. The dog’s jaws gained no purchased on the dome but managed to clamp a tentacle. Titanium fangs tore through, before other limbs wrapped around his neck. With sinister speed and force, its tentacles wrapped around Lupus’s neck. He threw his body against rocks to damage the creature.

“Lupus! Stop!” Paru cried, drawing a plasma pistol and levelling it on the attacker. It shifted back and forth as her canine fought, giving no clear shot.

Behind her she heard the booted feet of her crew, shouts raised, and pistols charging.

“Back!” she ordered. “Hold your fire! We can’t damage Lupus. His data...”

A claw raked Lupus’ head, tearing out an eye and prompting a moan. The tentacles exposed barbed spines on rotors that sawed into Lupus’ carbon fiber body.

“Lupus,” Paru sobbed, mist filling her visor, “be still.”

The canine stopped struggling, and the attacker hooked two claws under his headplate, tearing it open to reveal circuits and couplings. Paru shuddered, firing a plasma blast into the creature. It rebounded off Lupus to splay out like a beached jellyfish. Its tentacles jerked once but came to rest.

Paru knelt at Lupus’ side, wrapping her arms over his scarred back. She looked into his one crimson eye as it flickered. After a moment, its light went out completely.

“Captain!” came Kira’s cry.

She heard it first, a sickening tear and smell of steel. Her senses exploded into white-hot agony. Her head fell back, staring into the reflective surface of the Chaff’s dome. Plasma shots erupted, leaving more holes, until the Chaff shriveled like a spider.

* * *

As soon as Paru’s comm went dead, Kira ordered for her to be brought to the infirmary, and SecTeam was dispatched to inspect the ship for more stowaways. Kira stayed by Paru’s side for three hours, but her eyes never so much as fluttered. SecTeam’s reported no further Chaff but did confirm that the enemy had stowed away amongst crates of freeze-dried food in the cargo hold.

Once they’d been gathered, Kira addressed key crew from Paru’s bedside. Their captain hadn’t stabilized and soon would slip away. Later they’d call Kira brilliant for doing what she did in such desperation. It was a procedure the onboard technicians rejected, but Kira pressed. The operation would surely kill Paru, but the alternative was for her to be lost forever. Against all odds, they succeeded. Paru’s consciousness was uploaded to the ship’s computer while her brain still hummed with low activity.

While Paru was under the knife, Lupus’s data was uploaded as well. Analysis showed Fornacis 22 had everything the Outworlders needed to maintain habitats, so long as no more Chaff appeared. Kira wondered if any more stowaways would accompany the colony ships when they arrived in two years. For now, they’d establish Outworld’s first new colony in centuries.

Engineers pulled all-nighters for a week to repair Lupus. Despite their efforts, his CPU remained compromised by the Chaff attack. Kira had an idea for this. After summoning Paru’s consciousness from the Mindbank, they debated for hours in the captain’s quarters. Finally, they agreed, though the crew was not consulted.

On her first trek to the chasm, Captain Kira was joined by Paru, who padded alongside her on all fours. Paru’s limbs had no trouble navigating the terrain this time, and she was first to mount the hill. As Kira struggled, Paru looked back with a smiling canine face. She would miss Lupus, but now she could take his place, and she was happy to have a new home as well.