Chapter One

The landing was rough. Al had lived through significantly worse landings, but this was a public shuttle. He wasn’t used to flying public. There were kids on this ship. Every jolt and bump was making half of them panic and cry. They were panicking because their parents were panicking, because there’s nothing like bringing kids into the world to make you worry about every little thing. Luckily, he’d dodged that bullet.

Humanity had gotten landing spacecraft down to a fine art. Accidents were few. You were more likely to perish in a hover crash or choking on a sandwich than burn up entering atmosphere on a terraformed moon. Still, there was always the freak accident. Al relaxed back in his seat, his whole body vibrating with turbulence, and listened to the anxious noises of the people who thought they were about to become part of a rare and special set of statistics.

Crashing now would solve a lot of his problems. Actually, it would solve all his problems, so there was no chance he could be so lucky. The moon Titania was filling the view out the window and they hadn’t broken up yet. There weren’t even bits flying off the ship. Practically luxury. Half of him had a painful urge to be the one at the controls, to know exactly what was happening, but he was an average pilot and this shuttle was huge. Nearly as big as they came. His skills were many, specific, and elite, but landing a public shuttle was not one of them. If there had been someone to bet with he would have laid money down that he could do it. If Eric were here Al would have bet him, but Eric probably would have shot out his knees and left.

Al wasn’t going to risk drawing attention to himself for the sake of distraction. It wasn’t worth it. He could already identify the city of Fika out the window. Coming in hot. Landing wasn’t far. He closed his eyes and relaxed.

The shuttle hit the port so hard Al felt it in his bones. He wasn’t the only one, but his brain was kindly drowning out the startled cries of others. They were background noise here. Expected. It was the quiet ones you needed to watch for. He was abruptly aware that he was one of those ones. But he’d kept his eye on the passengers across the journey, and none of them seemed like people he needed to watch for. That meant no one was watching him. Or so he thought.

When he opened his eyes again someone was staring at him. A little girl. Her black hair was plaited to one side and her big eyes were staring straight at him. One small hand was clutched in her mother’s grasp, and the other pulled at her lip, but the action had clearly been distracted by his face. She wasn’t blinking. He shook his head to dissuade her. She kept staring. Fuck, she was about to start pointing. Very casually, Al moved his coat to expose his holstered gun, and stared her straight in the eye as he put a finger to his lips. She blinked. Well, that was something. He needed her to take the hint. Everyone said kids had great imaginations, hopefully the girl did too. Hopefully she was imagining he was on some exciting mission and she shouldn’t blow his cover.

The radio above them crackled into life, welcoming them to New Pacifika and informing them that it was now safe to disembark, please remember your belongings, fly with us again, etc, etc. Al was unbuckled and on his feet in an instant. In one fluid movement his rucksack was pulled from under his chair as he stood and strode away. He needed to put some distance between him and that kid before she made a fuss. Blow his cover… what fucking cover? He hadn’t been this naked in public for more than half his life. Depending on your definition of naked. He’d shown more skin than this in public, but it wasn’t the same thing, not by a long way.

He was out the door as fast as decency would allow. The hot air of the city hit him as he left the cool air-conditioning, but it was only the breaches in the bridge. At the other end he passed back into the terminal and into the customs queue. Fika’s security was weak, but they tried hard. Al could see a dozen different ways to cheat it just waiting in line. No wonder they had such a smuggling problem. The gate scanner was old. Really old. The kind of tech that beeped loudly and screamed the name of everyone going through. Shit.

Al grimaced as he watched, drawing ever closer to the dreaded gate. Lin had ordered him to travel under his real name. Bullshit. He hadn’t done that for as long as he could remember. All his protests had fallen on deaf ears. He could still see her clearly in his memory, standing in her red and gold office, looking up at him from behind her desk, her dark eyes piercing him like an infrared laser.

“Did I fucking stutter?” she demanded, her strong voice always so alarming from the mouth of such a tiny old woman. “We don’t know what this is, Al. We don’t know what is happening, and we don’t know how to stop it, but we do know that we can’t have you running around until the problem is solved. That’s why I’m suspending you with pay until we work out our next move. Go home. Go back to your family, go back to reality while we deal with this mess. I will call you as soon as I know more, but you can’t help with this one. It’s too public. You’re too public.”

The words stung. He understood them, but he hated everything about them. He was amazing at what he did. Investigation was his business, but he was being told he couldn’t research his own problem. No. Go home. Sit around and wait. He wanted to smash things, and the queue was growing dangerously shorter. The guard at the gate raised a hand and bid him wait while the person ahead went through. Beep! Green light. Clear.

He should have defied Lin. He should have kept his scrambler and loaded his chip and bolted for the Aryabhata orbit. Everyone was expecting him to head for Galileo. He wanted to head for Galileo. He wanted to find out what was going on. But at least if he went to Aryabhata no one would know where to find him. He could hide there until all this blew over. Instead, here he was on a rock circling Pan, orbiting the light of Gan De. He stepped up to the gate and held out his wrist. The Gate scanned his chip. Beep! Al-Amir Akiyama! Al winced as the robotic voice yelled his name. Green light. Clear.

Everyone was looking at him. He gritted his teeth. Security gave him a nervous glance. They didn’t even scan him. So much for cheating the system. Now he felt cheated for not getting the opportunity to cheat. He hoisted his rucksack on his shoulder and barged through. No one stopped him. No one said anything. He could feel the eyes on him all the way through the terminal. People would glance. Then double take. Fuck this. He stormed from the terminal as fast as his long legs would carry him.

The traffic outside was frantic. It was late afternoon now but days were short here. Titania turned fast. A chunk of her sky was taken up by the ball of green she orbited. The super terrestrial Pan had a curve of shadow over him. The sun known as Gan De was hot and bright and close. Al missed Oberon already. Sure, the radiation shields on Titania were just as good as her twin moon, but the heat filter wasn’t quite as strong. Lots of people loved it. They said the weather was better here. Those people were wrong. The air was too humid to be comfortable.

He stood in the heat and watched the docks of Fika pass him by. Home. What a dropkick of a city. Now he was here he had no idea where to go or what to do. He hadn’t been Al Akiyama for seventeen years. The person he had been when he left had been erased. Rebuilt. What in all shit was he even doing here?

Standing around was just going to get him noticed again, so he took off for the old neighbourhood. It was like visiting somewhere from a dream. Everything was familiar, but strange. He kept his head down as he left the docks and headed into the depths of Fika. The old neighbourhood wasn’t far. This was the part of town he’d grown up in, down in the trade section. Days of his childhood had once flown by scampering around these old docks, hanging with the girls, dodging trouble, watching the ships come and go and dreaming of a life far from here.

He'd made it. He’d skipped town at sixteen and worked hard and run harder to get away from here. Military for a few years until he’d caught Lin’s eye, then Specialist Training. Back then Dawa Lin had been Councillor, now she was President. He’d helped make that happen. Sure, if she hadn’t hired him she would have found someone else. There would always be others, but Lin wouldn’t be sitting behind that desk without the hard work Al had done for her over the years. Now she was President of Titania and she’d just fired him. He was trying not to think about it that way, but every angle he turned it in his head made him feel like he’d just been fired.

That called for a drink. He’d been too young to drink when he’d left town, but he had been back for the occasional visit. He owed his parents that much, even if it was always fleeting visits. Always a brief hello, under an assumed name, with a casual flaunt of newfound prosperity. He was a peacock and he knew it. That was alright with him. But a peacock stripped of its feathers was just a hideous naked chicken, and the shame of it was suffocating. He stalked into an old bar and moved straight to the counter, pulling up a scratched stool and dumping his bag at his feet.

The heavy bartender gave him a familiar friendly nod. The guy looked at him with that expression that knew he’d seen Al before, but couldn’t quite remember where. Given his profession it wasn’t all that surprising. Except Al was getting really sick of that look from everybody. Not that this guy was at fault. That was half the problem, no one really seemed to be at fault.

“Talofa,” the barman greeted him. “What can I get you, friend?”

Al decided it might be safer to avoid speaking and signed for a double ele’vai. The barman gave him a grin and a nod and signed back. He tapped the light-up menu in the counter, flicking through the order and firing it down the bar to Al. Al held his wrist above the reader by his seat and charged the drink to his chip as the barman poured it out. The man made the drink and slid it down the bar to Al, a perfect skid that didn’t spill a drop. Now that was an art. One Al had learnt how to do himself. He gave a smile and a nod to convey his appreciation of the man’s talent. The man grinned back and signed the bell icon that Al should ring if he needed anything.

He couldn’t imagine needing anything but refills. After the first sip he wasn’t sure he needed that. The wince didn’t show on his face, but he felt it all the way to his toes. He always forgot how nasty dock piss could be. Still, it would get him drunk. Drunk was what he needed to be after two weeks of watching his entire life go up in an irrevocable, radioactive flaming mess.

Like speaking of the devil, he was barely down his first drink when the giant projection behind the bar flickered into his worst nightmare. It had been sports. Who didn’t love shuttle races? Who would dare interrupt the post-race analysis for this garbage? The newsreader was talking about him. His name appeared on the scroll. Worse. His face. A bad photo of him from an event six months ago. Sweet Allah, he looked like a woman in that wig. Although, that had been half the idea. He’d been calling himself ‘Nat’ for that job. Lin’s advice, go soft, go pretty. He was good at that.

“Ever since the dreams began two weeks ago, investigators have been digging furiously to find out everything they can about the strange figure we’ve all been seeing in our sleep,” the broadcaster announced.

Al wanted to climb through the screen and throttle her into silence, but he couldn’t, so he buried his face in his arms on the bar. He could already feel the bartender staring at him. Yep, that’s where you know me from, buddy, Al sighed internally. I’m the man of your dreams. Of everyone’s fucking dreams.

“Communications across the three stars haven’t been able to find anyone in the entire tertiary system who hasn’t dreamt of the mysterious person we are able to confirm as Al-Amir Akiyama, a resident of Titania who supposedly works for Titania’s President Dawa Lin.”

Now there was a photo of Lin up beside him on the screen. The tiny lady had a round, lined face with short dark grey hair. The salt and pepper effect was still more pepper, as though age had attempted to take root and was finding the battle more difficult than anticipated. She wore a deep red qipao that matched her crimson lipstick and ruby jewellery. Despite looking like the galaxy’s best-dressed grandmother, there was something about her dark smoky eyes that was so shrewd Al was certain Allah himself would think twice before taking her on.

“The United Planetary Systems has ordered an official inquiry into the matter. However, information has been scarce,” the newsreader continued, the scroll filling out her words below just in case there was anyone who couldn’t hear her. “But our investigators inside President Lin’s office are certain that no one knows how or why these dreams have begun. Akiyama’s exact role in Lin’s government is unknown, but evidence suggests our mysterious stranger works in intelligence.”

Al held back a deep groan. Yes, please, just fucking tell everyone I’m a spy. Sure. That’s great. Fucking journalists. He could feel a deep breath trembling his lungs. A strange sensation. Not something he was familiar with. What was that? A deep… despair? Well, fair enough. He wasn’t just a spy. He was an excellent spy. The best goddamn spy Titania had. At least, he had been, right before everyone orbiting the three suns had started having that weird dream. That messed up flicker of the destruction of Gilgamesh with a static message about Al. The image of his face and a voice insisting he would save everyone from the Goo that destroyed the Milky Way some two hundred years ago.

“No one has been able to determine if Akiyama’s investigations have yielded any information into what happened twenty years ago when the alien substance known only as the Goo – thought to have been escaped by humanity – appeared and swallowed the planet Gilgamesh in the Galileo orbit. Despite the floods of terror brought about by the obliteration of Gilgamesh, the Goo appeared to settle after devouring the planet and has remained dormant since. Now, with these strange new dreams no one can explain, people are beginning to fear what the future holds. Immigration from the Galileo orbit has increased in the last two weeks as those fearing their planet will be next look for safer harbours. However, scientists report no indication that anywhere is in immediate danger from the Goo. President Lin’s office has officially stated that they cannot link Akiyama to the Goo in any capacity beyond these dreams, but want to assure the public they are doing everything they can to look into it.”

“Bite me,” Al muttered to the bar, his breath steaming the glazed top. Lin was doing everything she could. Okay, sure, but she had no fucking idea what was going on. No one did. Not even Al, and he was the one parading through humanity’s collective subconscious. Now he was benched because being a spy was downright impossible if you couldn’t even take a piss without everyone in the bathroom going ‘hey, you’re that guy!’. Speaking of which…

“Hey! Hey, you!” A drunk grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him back, attempting to expose his face. Al yanked his shoulder from the man’s grasp.

“Tuu pea o ia,” the bartender gently bid the drunk to leave Al alone.

Unfortunately, the man was either too drunk or too obnoxious to take the hint. He grabbed Al again and hauled him off the bar, forcing him to face the room.

“It’s you!” the drunk insisted. “You’re the guy! What are you doing here?!”

That was a damn fine question and Al wished he could answer it. He wished he had the vaguest clue what he was doing. There was nothing he could say. He couldn’t tell the truth, it was all classified. If he followed his sarcastic instinct to mess with people, Lin would have him assassinated for scaremongering.

“You got me confused with someone else,” he muttered, trying to wave the man off.

“No, you’re the news guy!” The man pointed. It was really hard to talk him down when Al was sitting next to a display of his own face. “You’re supposed to be saving us from the Goo! What are you doing in Fika?”

“I’m waiting for intel,” Al answered with the bitterest truth he could manage. “Get lost. You’re blowing my cover.” He wished he hadn’t said that as soon as the words passed his lips. Blowing his cover? Seriously? Who was he kidding?

“You like a spy then?” the drunk demanded. “You a spy for that Lin bitch?”

Oh this was going to go so well…

“Get. Lost.” Al grated. He waved the man off. “Waiho ahau.”

The man shoved him hard enough to knock the bar stool. Al stayed on, but he grabbed the bench to keep from falling. If he turned this into an event the idiot was liable to end up dead. Al wanted to hit him, but he couldn’t risk getting into trouble. Not now. Not when the entire galaxy was watching him. But the drunk was starting something, and someone was going to have to finish it. The man was looking for a fight, his body language demanded violence. He opened his mouth to start screaming something. His head hit the top of the bar hard enough to crack it. Al jerked back. He tilted his eyes up a thick multicoloured tree trunk, which was apparently the tattooed arm of a giant.

The giant wore a baggy singlet that exposed his massive, heavily muscled arms and their ink sleeves. His hand could easily wrap around the skull of the drunk, which he held pressed to the bar. Above shoulders that looked like they could have belonged to Atlas, was the face of an impassive yet earnest man.

“Man said ‘get lost’,” the giant reminded politely. “I don’t wanna hurt you, nakama. Please don’t make me.”

The drunk tried to rip himself free, but the giant kept his head pressed against the bar.

“Don’t do that,” the giant advised. He held the man down patiently, seemingly waiting for him to tire. The drunk kicked him in the leg. The giant thumped his head again and the drunk’s eyes glazed.

“That’s enough, Adam,” a woman’s voice soothed. A tiny hand rested on the giant’s free arm. He dropped the stunned drunk with the other.

Al stared at the newcomers. Holy shit. He’d forgotten how huge Adam was. To be fair, he barely knew him as an adult. The lady he knew well – as well as Al really knew anyone. Her brother might have been chasing seven foot and built like Maui, but she was barely scraping over five foot. Her thick shiny dark hair was woven across the top of her head into a wide braid that trailed into a point at the nape of her neck. She had the widest, friendliest smile in the whole galaxy and thirty years on she still dressed like a little kid. She wore a black compressor t-shirt with grey overalls that had cute animal patches. Al could see a little green snail, a fluffy rabbit, and a teddy bear. She’d always been eccentric, even when they were kids, which was part of how she had ended up with such an unusual nickname.

“Slug?!” he exclaimed.

“Knew I’d find you here eventually,” she grinned, ribbing him with her elbow. “We’ve been waiting for you to show up. Took your sweet time, shin'yū.”

Al very suddenly had her arms around his waist and her face buried in his chest. She was so short and warm and loving. He didn’t know what to do with that. At first he floundered, not sure how to hug her back or where to put his hands, but looking around meant seeing Adam. Adam Tanaka took up most of Al’s field of vision. His face was completely impassive, but it looked like it had been chiselled from stained mahogany and his dark eyes were curious. Except curious on Adam had an underlying level of threat in it that the giant probably didn’t realise he exuded. Al felt himself pull Slug in protectively around the shoulders, hugging her back. He wasn’t sure which one of them he was protecting, but she nuzzled into it. Adam seemed content with this outcome. Al couldn’t take his eyes off him, but that meant the guy was holding his gaze.

“Adam,” he swallowed nervously and greeted him with a polite nod, still hugging the man’s sister.

“Hey Al,” Adam smiled at him. It was a friendly smile. Merciful Mohammad, that was just as bad as a glare. With a glare you knew to watch yourself. The smile set a false ease, you still had to watch yourself just as carefully when Adam smiled, no matter how approachable it seemed.

Slug untangled herself from Al’s arms, beaming up at him. She still kept one arm tucked around his waist as she turned him towards the door.

“Come on, Al. Let’s get you home,” she encouraged.

Home was somewhere he had been deliberately avoiding, but he knew that was his pride calling the shots. Besides, he was used to following orders. It was what he was good at. Having someone else making the decision right now was a relief, and he didn’t mind getting manhandled by Slug. He snatched his bag up as she guided him from the bar. Adam followed them out closely, throwing a short glance back in case anyone was looking to follow them. No one who met his eye was going out that door in a hurry.