Under A Winter Sun by Johan Dahlgren (ink ebook reader txt) 📕

My consciousness dissolves aided by the drugs pumped into my system by the crash seat.

Nifelheim, here we come.

Mind If I Join You?

I'm weightless.

The acceleration phase is over, and my body feels like it's been through a meat grinder. I glance at the clock on the screen. I've been out for twenty-five hours, and it's time for the flip. Halfway through a hard-burn trip, you swing your ship around 180 degrees and fire the engines at your target for a matching deceleration phase.

There have been brief lulls in the burns to keep us from dying, but we haven't noticed. The supervising systems need not bring us to full consciousness during the breaks. But now we get some awake time.

“Hey, Soledad? You up?”

There's an affirmative grunt from Soledad's bunk.

I unstrap and push off against the ceiling and float over to the door. I turn around to see how Soledad is doing and freeze.

“What are you staring at, Perez? You don't look so hot yourself.”

Soledad has bruises on her face, and her eyes are bloodshot. The thin capillaries in our eyes and skin don't stand up well to an extended hard burn, and the back of my hands show the same discolouration. The familiar tingling in my blood tells me the nanites have already gone to work. As always, that makes me hungry. My body needs raw materials to rebuild itself. “I'm off to the galley. Are you coming?”

“Sure. Let's see what they can cook up on a boat like this. The navy is supposed to have amazing cooks.” She kicks off after me.

We pull ourselves through the darkened passageways and over to the officer's mess. I glance at my hands again. The discolouration is almost gone, but Soledad still looks like an extra from a zombie feed. She should be restored by now if her nanites had worked as intended. Perhaps the girls are a cheaper model than me.

Did Gray start a second project after the one that created Meridian and the Cherubim? No. If that were the case, they should be better than me, not worse. So, a competing project then. Run by whom?

We float into the mess. It's better illuminated than the passageway outside, but it's still dark by any standards. There's no one around, so we search the place for something to eat. After rummaging around, Soledad finds a crate of freeze-dried, beef stew. She shakes it to see if it's full. In zero gravity things don't have weight, but they still have mass. “Found it.” She braces against a cupboard and sends the box floating my way. She seems happy like a fish in water.

I throw five packs into the cooker, and as I start the heating process, Jagr enters with Braden in tow.

“Hey. I thought we'd find you here.”

She straps into a seat at the table. “What's for dinner?”

“Beef stew. You want some?” There's a not entirely appetising smell coming from the cooker.

“Are you buying?”

“I'm buying.”

“Then beef stew it is.”

She drums her fingers on the tabletop. “And make it snappy. I'm starving.”

I pull out ten more packs and throw them into the cooker. We wait in silence for the food. No one wants to talk.

The machine beeps and I hand out the packs before I strap down at the table next to Soledad. Triple rations for all. If they are anything like me, they need their nutrients.

“So, Jagr. Are you going to fill me in here?”

Braden and Soledad glance at Jagr.

“Who are you people, and what's the deal with your agent on Nifelheim?”

Jagr opens her first pack of stew. She takes her time. You don't want sticky pieces of hot meat and gravy flying around in Zero-G.

She takes a bite of the steaming nutrition bar. “Yeah, I guess we owe you something of an explanation.”

I chew a piece off my bar. “You sure do.” It doesn't taste like either beef or stew, but it's not the worst I've had. Like most edibles on a starship, it's made from fungi grown onboard in great dark vats. Not the best conditions for gastronomical marvels.

Jagr looks off into the distance. “We are all that's left of the Shard.”

“The what?”

“You heard me.”

“Oh, come on. The Shard?”

Everyone in the business has heard of the Shard. They are a semi-mythical unit, like the Men in Black. Only the tinfoil hats believe they are real.

“Better believe it, Perez.” She's not joking.

Fuck me. That would explain their unlimited access to resources. And the star marshal's reverence.

“OK.” I nod, impressed. “So, you're the Shard. How come you are clones?”

Jagr flinches at the word but keeps her composure. “What do you know about Gray's Project Cherubim?”

“Enough. He cloned himself and injected the embryos with self-replicating nanobots. Then he had their skeletons and tendons torn out and replaced with hypercarbon to create immortal soldiers. That about right?”

“In essence. Then the first Great War between Hope and Terra happened. Gray drafted his pet soldiers to fight for Hope, and we all know how that went.”

“Yes, Meridian burned Arcadia, and Gray killed the General and his soldiers to cover his ass. But Meridian survived.”

Jagr nods without looking at me. “So did another. Major Solana. The soldier who stopped Meridian's attack on Nero Gray.”

Deep down inside, something knots at the mention of Solana's name and I've got to quench an impulse to scream insanely. Meridian hates that guy.

I swallow hard to get the knot to stay in my belly.

“I always wondered what happened to Solana after the war, but I haven't been able to find a single trace of him.” My jaws clench. “Believe me, I've tried.”

“That's because he fled to Earth with the retreating Terran forces. He knew Gray couldn't let him live, so he stowed away on a ship and hitched a ride back to Earth. He contacted the immortals, hoping to trade his knowledge about Gray and his project for a life in peace. Didn't quite work out for him.”

I finish my stew and grab another. Something tells me the general will like the next part.