Notes: I'm still going! This story is getting told, damn it! Have some Kyle POV--he's going to be a pretty big presence in this one.

Title: The Beyond, Chapter Three

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ChapterThree

Photo by the NASA Hubble Space Telescope

Kyle sat next to Robbie in the cockpit oftheir little ship, prepping everything from the emergency cut-offs for theengine to the modified trajectory calculator that he planned to run in tandemwith Robbie’s approach. It wasn’t enough to really help, but it would make Kylefeel better about the whole thing.

Their crew was, unfortunately, a littleinfamous among people in the Beyond for this particular approach to CloverleafStation. The asteroid field was a decent approach as long as you kept enoughdistance, but given the strength of the gravity waves, you didn’t save much onfuel by skirting close to the pulsar. Most people found it easier to go long, flya few million kilometers away and get some bigger eddies and currents in thereto break up the persistent damage of the pulsar, and round on the station fromthe larger spaceways, usually hitching onto the most popular from Gania.

That sort of patience wasn’t to be found in Wyland Pence, back when he was with them. As for the benefit of keeping theirunique status to themselves, Robbie of all people declined to bother withhiding that there was something that allowed them to do what they did. “Weneed people to know that there’s something weird going on with us,” hereasoned. “We need them to want to approach us and interview us, so we canlearn from them as much as they might learn from us.”

Which…he wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’tthe way Kyle had been trained to go about things. Admiral Liang had taught himfrom a young age that the best way to get information was by being covert, byhiding your true intentions and giving people what they wanted to see. It hadworked for him for a long time—worked too well in the end, when his brotherdecided to discard him at Redstone.

Garrett Caractacus had anticipated that andsent Isidore Cain ahead of him to save his life, and Kyle would be forevergrateful for that, not just because Isidore had saved him, but because in doingso, he’d met someone who was so much like him. Isidore was clever, and knew thebenefit of a pretty face and empty eyes, and was so much more dangerous than helooked. If he hadn’t fallen in love with Pence, Kyle would have done hisdamndest to convince Isidore to stay with them.

But he’d fallen in love after all, temptedinto the start of it before Kyle ever showed up, and Kyle knew better than tofight it. That was another thing he’d grown used to—perpetually coming secondin the race for a heart.

Stop it. Isidore was happy, so he washappy for him. Besides, the man was pining for civilization and Kyle couldn’tblame him. He had a chance to do more with himself, and he should take it. Kylewould be in good company with Wyl and Robbie.

Second place again. Which, again—Robbieand Wyl were married, and he was old-fashioned the way you got from Martians—heonly had eyes for Wyl, and Wyl felt the same. They were the sort of devoted he’dnever seen before…well, maybe with Cody and Ten, but that relationship was purechaos, where these two were solid, two planets in perfect orbit around eachother. The only hiccup there was the parasite, and that could be fixed.

It could.

It had to be.

“Ready for approach.” Robbie’s voice wassteady, almost mechanical as he made minute adjustments to their pitch.

“Ready,” Kyle confirmed. “The quickest routelooks like about forty thousand kilometers, with permanent shadow.” Theinformation wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better since the Ganian stationmasterhad started sending drones out to map the field and give spacers continual updates.

“I’ll increase speed a little.” Ten thousandkilometers an hour was a brisk enough pace, but should give them time to makethe adjustments needed to handle unexpected asteroid movement.

“Copy.”

“Are we good?” Wyl asked, coming up behindRobbie and laying his hands on the other man’s shoulders.

“We’re good,” Robbie said, covering one ofWyl’s hands with his own for a moment.

They were. It would be fine, they’d donethis a dozen times over the past three years. They’d only ever had problemsonce, and that was the very first trip. Robbie was better at this now—perfect,in fact.

Because he had the parasite.

“Here.” A mug appeared in Kyle’s peripheralvision. He turned and took it from Isidore with a smile.

“Thanks.” He sipped—mm, milky and sweet, theonly way he liked coffee. Kyle took his share of ribbing from Wyl about takinghis coffee like a child, but the hell with it. He liked what he liked, and heliked coffee that didn’t feel like a punishment.

“You ready for the station?”

Kyle shrugged. “It’ll be nice to see Penceagain.”

“What about your friend there? Jenette,right?”

Kyle shook his head. “She left at the end oflast season.”

“And you got her com info, right?”

No, he hadn’t. Jenette had been friendly, a Drifterturned miner who didn’t know who Kyle was and wouldn’t have cared anyway, butthere was no point in keeping in touch with her. He’d had to lie to her everymoment they spent together; it was just easier not to dig his hole any deeper,especially since she was heading deeper into Alliance space. “It’s fine.”

“Let’s get going,” Robbie said briskly, andKyle gratefully abandoned the conversation and focused on watching Robbieinstead.

This far out, the parasite’s abilities weren’treally apparent. Robbie manipulated the ship onto the right path, the same oneKyle’s program had identified, and they set off into the asteroid field. Fortythousand kilometers…no problem, and yet…there were so many things that couldgo wrong so quickly. One miscalculation, one misstep, and they’d be splashedacross the side of a massive space rock, a brief flare of heat that a drone mightcatch, if they were lucky, and if they weren’t…

Well, they’d be lost. One more missing shipin a long, long line of ships that had never returned from the Beyond. It wasn’ta place people lived, or where they attempted to make careers or build a lifefor themselves. The Beyond was simply beyond, a region of space that teemedwith so many anomalies that regular radio contact was impossible. Space itselfhad been warped, like an enormous hand had reached down and twisted it,making it into something that was almost totally incompatible with life.

Almost. There were also the Ruins, hard tofind and harder yet to return to, and those were what people like Kathryn Blakewere interested in. They were evidence of—hell, the claims varied. Everythingfrom more species of aliens to a portal into another universe had been floated,and Robbie read them all. They all kept up with the research, but Robbie wasparticularly keen to figure out as much as he could.

The parasite had come from the Beyond, afterall. Stood to reason that if he was going to be able to get rid of it, that wasthe place to do it.

Wyl and Isidore headed back to the mess oncethey were underway, chatting about anything and everything, but Kyle kept hisfocus on the charted path. He was the second pilot, and if anything happened toRobbie he’d have to take over. Not that anything would happen to Robbie,but Kyle needed to be ready, just in case. He might not have the military levelof mods he used to, not since his brother had ordered them all permanentlydeactivated before Redstone, but Isidore had gotten him some damn goodreplacements, and Kyle still had the muscle memory to use them to the highestlevel. His reflexes were amazing.

They still weren’t as good as Robbie’s when theparasite was driving.

Kyle watched him out of the corner of hiseye. Right now it was Robbie in charge, as far as he could tell. His eyes werenormal, he wasn’t sweating or shivering—he was just Robbie. He was Robbie forthe first hour, and the second, and then they were halfway through the fieldand had to slow down a bit, which was fine, because—

“Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbee—”

“Proximity alert,” Kyle said quickly, shuttingoff the alarm and pulling the affected zone up on his implant. He broadcast itto the ship so it showed on the screen. “Two asteroids had an unanticipated collisionabout five thousand kilometers out. There’s a new debris field.”

“How much?” Wyl demanded. “What size are wetalking here?”

Size made a big difference. Big debris wasbetter—easier to see, easier to maneuver around, easier to avoid. Small waslike trying to fly through thousands of bullets at the speed they were goingright now.  Their shielding just wasn’tgood enough to endure it.

“It’s—shit, it’s showing up as a cloud,”Kyle said with a grimace. “No visible pieces, small enough to scatter fast. Weneed to backtrack.”

“No.”

They all turned to look at Robbie. Hispupils had gotten large, and too shiny.

“We can’t make it through that debris,” Wylsaid in something close to his normal voice.

“Backtracking will take too much fuel. Wewon’t be able to make Cloverleaf without bartering back in the Beyond for more,and that will take too much money.”

He wasn’t wrong, but it was the only reasonablething to do.

“The Devas owe me,” Isidore said after a moment.“I can get fuel for less from them.”

“Pence is only allowed on Cloverleaf for anothertwo days. He’ll have to leave to renew his pass, and that could take months. You’llmiss your window to leave with him.”

Kyle’s heart lurched downward for a moment.That would be bad, Isidore having to stay would be bad, and yet…

“I can get us there,” Robbie said, blinkinghard. When he looked at thema gain, his eyes were their normal blue. “Trust me.”

Wyl bit his lip. “Robbie.”

“I can.”

“All right.” That was Isidore, noddingfirmly. “Let’s do it.”

Robbie smiled at them. “I’ve got this.” He turnedback to the viewscreen and began to modify their course, taking over manually.

Kyle startled badly when Robbie looked overat him and, with a wry smile on his face, winked. His eyes had gone completelyblack. “Follow my lead and reprogram as we go,” he said, then turned to faceforward again, and his face sort of…blanked.

This, at least, Kyle had seen before, whenthe parasite was extending its—shit, he didn’t know what to call it. Aura?Cosmic range? Whatever it was, Robbie’s passenger had the ability to sense thespace around him better than anything Kyle had ever heard of before. He coulddo it from inside a ship, from standing on the surface of a vantablack planetwith no light except what they brought with them, he could do it undergroundand under water. And clearly he could do it for thousands of kilometers, whichbegged so many questions that Kyle wasn’t prepared to even ask.

Robbie kept them on course for anotherfifteen minutes. The first deviation came in the shadow of an enormousasteroid, one several miles across. Instead of skirting around the side of it,he took them under, keeping them in the protective shadow and curling up tighton the other side as they emerged—

Right next to a second asteroid, holyshit, the radar showed it was almost close enough to touch. Kyleinhaled sharply, and from right behind him Wyl cursed, then put the viewfinderon visible. He knew it didn’t matter to Robbie, after all.

Their lights illuminated the pitted, gray rockof the asteroid they’d nearly kissed a moment ago, smaller than the one they’ddarted under but spinning slightly, more mobile. Kyle’s breath stilled in hislungs, his heart starting to race as he realized his program was completelyuseless now. If anything happened to Robbie, he wouldn’t be able to pick up theslack. He’d get them all killed. Useless, worthless, dragging other people down…

“Focus,” Robbie whispered, and Kyle knew itwas for him. He forced himself to look away from the screen and at what his ownimplant was broadcasting, willing the calculations to catch up even though heknew it was impossible.

They had three more close calls over thenext forty minutes, including actually watching an impact take place less thana thousand yards away. The asteroids involved were tiny, only about the size oftheir ship, and broke into a dozen pieces that Robbie was able to weave aroundwithout a problem. Still, it was humbling and terrifying in equal measureknowing that the field was always, always in motion. The pulsar’s gravitationalwaves left the asteroids unstable, moving them around, while at the same timeits gravity well pulled the smaller pieces in over time to be consumed by the brokenstar. It was the only reason the field was passable at all, instead of a solidcloud of dust.

Two more hours and they were finally withinrange of Cloverleaf Station. Robbie was soaked with sweat and Kyle didn’t feelmuch better, but as soon as they emerged from the field he reversed theirforward propulsion and shut the engines down, then sent their docking code offso a drone could come get them.

“Holy shit,” Isidore murmured.

Kyle looked over his shoulder at them, andone glance was enough to make him get up and give his chair to Wyl. They neededspace, and he needed some water. He went back to the mess, head pounding from residualtension, and poured himself a drink. It was tepid and metallic, but it stilltasted amazing to him.

Isidore’s hand clasped his shoulder. Kyleshuddered at the clammy feel of his shirt pressing down on his skin. “Are youokay?”

Kyle resisted the wild urge to giggle. Whata question. “I’m fine. I didn’t even have to do anything.”

“You had to watch.”

And watching was hard, was what he wasgetting at, but the truth was Kyle had been grateful to watch. Happy todo so, even. He’d known he couldn’t do what Robbie did in those moments, knewhe was nothing but a liability.

In the end, he just shook his head. Isidoresqueezed him one more time, then let go. “Come on. Let’s get you kitted out forthe station.”

Ah right, his disguise. Couldn’t show uplooking like himself, not even on the edge of the known universe. Kyle drainedhis cup and set it in the sink. He’d clear it later. “Yeah, okay.”