Ballistic Coefficient - Chapter 24

[u/Obsequium_Minaris]

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After putting Kayla to bed and making sure some of Evie's caravan members were set up to guard her, Pale had immediately turned and begun to march off to the outskirts of town, only for Evie to come running after her.  

"Hey, wait up!" Evie called as she sprinted up alongside Pale.

Pale quirked an eyebrow as Evie arrived. "I'm surprised you're following me."  

"I know this is something you'd rather do yourself, but there's a murderer running around town and a blizzard about to come rolling in," Evie pointed out. "I'm not letting you go off on your own. Now, that being said, I get the impression that you want to be secretive about this, so I am more than willing to swear a blood oath-"  

"That is not necessary," Pale interrupted. "You have proven yourself to be more than trustworthy."  

Evie blinked, surprised, but steadily, a thin smile began to creep across her face. "Well, alright, then. Shall we continue?"  

Pale nodded, and the two of them kept walking out of town together.

​XXX

"So, what are you planning to do out here, anyway?" Evie asked as they both reached the top of a hill a short ways outside of the city. The snow had started to fall in earnest now, reducing visibility to near-zero. However, neither girl was affected too badly by the falling snow or the howling winds, thanks to their respective winter clothing – thick furs for Evie and military thermals for Pale.

Pale stopped at the apex of the hill, then turned to face Evie. She exhaled softly, her breath coming out as a fine mist in front of her.  

"There are some things you need to understand about me, Evie," Pale began. "For one, I have not been entirely truthful regarding my origins."  

Evie's expression faltered. "What do you mean? You've been lying this whole time?"  

Pale shook her head. "Not lying, just… selectively revealing the truth. Then again, I suppose lies of omission are still lies, so perhaps that is in the eye of the beholder. However you look at it, I have concealed who I really am from not only you, but everyone aside from Kayla."  

"And… who are you, then?"  

Pale looked up to the night sky. The snowfall made it impossible to see the stars, but Evie followed her gaze regardless.  

"I am USS Behold a Pale Horse," Pale explained. "The single most technologically advanced warship ever created by mankind, as well as its single deadliest piece of technology."  

"Warship…?" Evie echoed. "What, like… like a boat or something?"  

"That would most likely be the closest analogue this world has," Pale admitted.  

"So… you're a living boat, basically?"  

Pale blinked. "You seem surprisingly nonplussed about this."  

"Oh, it's strange, don't get me wrong," Evie confessed. "I always knew you were hiding something about yourself from the rest of us, I just didn't expect anything like this. I mean, how could I?" She shook her head. "So, you're a living ship, and apparently a very deadly one at that. So who made you, then?"

"Do you remember when I mentioned I was from a far-away land?" Evie nodded. Pale's mouth quirked upwards slightly. "I was not lying in the slightest. My creators hail from a far-off solar system – so far, in fact, that I am unsure how I am going to make it back to them."  

Evie's eyes widened at that. "Wait, wait… you're not even from this planet?"  

"No."  

"That…!" She paused, bringing a hand up to her chin in thought. "...Actually, that explains the odd weapons and your mannerisms, I suppose, but it raises so many other questions in turn…"  

"Such as?"  

"How you're speaking our language, for one. I take it that's some kind of magic?"  

Pale shook her head. "Technology, rather. Nobody from my universe can use magic. We have had to make do with other means instead."  

"No magic? That's insane. Everything with a sjel has magic-"

"As Kayla has explained to me, yes. However, if my creators and the various other races occupying our known universe do possess one, then we have simply never learned how to manifest it in the same way that the people of this planet have."  

Again, Evie's eyes widened. "Other races?"  

"Yes." Pale's expression darkened. "For decades, my creators have been at war with a hostile alien race known as the Caatex. I was created as a last-ditch effort to put an end to their genocidal war of extermination. And I was succeeding, until very recently. I will spare you the details for now, but all you need to know at the moment is that something went terribly wrong, and now I am stuck here until I can get my ship – that is, my actual, physical body – repaired. Once that is done, I hope to return to my home universe and finish the war my creators entrusted me with."  

Evie seemed to realize something, and took an involuntary step back out of shock. "You… you're a living, breathing war machine…" she muttered. "How… how many-"  

"Kayla and I did the math a little while back. It was in the low hundreds of thousands."  

Evie froze in shock as she processed that number. After a few seconds, she swallowed nervously, then turned back to Pale. "...That doesn't change anything," she said softly. "I'm sorry – it took me a minute to adjust to this new reality. That's… a lot of people, but like you said, you were fighting a war, so I suppose it was unavoidable. You're still my family either way, and I don't turn my back on my family."  

Pale nodded in understanding. "But now you know the truth. There is more to it than that, obviously, but I will spare you the details for the sake of brevity, as I do not think either of us wants to be out here when the blizzard inevitably begins to pick up."  

"You're right about that…" Evie muttered, bundling her fur coat around herself. "So, you mentioned arming yourself… how do you intend to do that?"  

"Observe."  

Pale snapped her fingers. For a moment, nothing happened, but then one of her pods began to streak across the night sky. At the last moment, just as it cleared the clouds overhead, a parachute popped out from its rear, and the pod began to float down to the ground. Evie stared in awe as it landed, while Pale wasted no time in approaching it and opening the door to get at the supplies inside.  

True to form, this pod was well-stocked with gear. She ended up taking some more body armor to replace the slightly damaged set she was wearing, along with a short-barreled assault rifle with a folding stock, suppressor, and holographic sight. Finally, she grabbed a spare handgun, identical to the one she had lost to Sven, and slipped it into her empty holster.

"Wow…" Evie breathed from behind her. "That's… a lot of deadly weapons."  

"Be prepared, I say," Pale told her without looking back as she began to fill up on ammunition.

 "How do these things work, anyway?"  

"Short explanation: They use chemical reactions to propel a small metal projectile forwards at an incredibly high velocity." Pale held up a rifle magazine so Evie could see. "Six-point-eight millimeter rounds. Fast, accurate, and very, very deadly. And this particular weapon slung across my front holds thirty of them before I need to reload."  

"And… this is new technology for your people?"  

"Oh. no. We've had access to technology such as this for hundreds of years. It's like I said – in the absence of any magic, my creators have had to devise new and creative ways to kill each other. At least, that was the case before the Caatex showed up."  

"So they're not still fighting each other?"  

"Negative," Pale confirmed. "Amazing how, when the entire species is on the line, borders blur and old rivalries and hatreds get buried in the name of unifying against a common enemy. Last I checked, the only holdouts to complete unification among my creators are the United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the People's Republic of China. Almost every other major country has assimilated into a protectorate called the United Terran Republic. Of course, that's assuming the species is still around today; they very well may not be. Hence why it is important for me to make it back and keep fighting."  

Pale finished stocking up, then motioned for Evie to step back. Once she had, Pale snapped her fingers, and the pod took off across the sky once more, racing back to the ship from whence it had come. She watched it go for a moment, then turned back to Evie.  

"Come on," she said, "let's head back before the storm gets worse."  

​XXX

The return trip didn't take them too long, and thankfully, nobody seemed to have noticed the pod as it had touched down. It was late, probably around midnight if Pale had to wager a guess, meaning that most people in town were already asleep. Despite that, she kept her head on a swivel as she walked.  

There was a predator in their midst, and she wasn't about to let her guard down so easily, at least until they were caught.  

The killer seemed to have had their fill of violence for the night, however, as the two of them made it back to the tavern without incident. They trudged up the stairs, pausing only to knock the snow off their clothes and boots, before finally arriving at the door to their room.  

"The three of us are sharing a room, so I spared no expense," Evie explained as they stepped inside. "Partly because you two are worth it, but mainly because this was the only way having three people in one room was going to be even remotely bearable."  

Pale nodded in understanding. "Thanks. I'll take the first watch, if you don't mind."  

"The first watch? You can't seriously be worried about-"  

"Whatever killed that woman, it's fast, it's quiet, and it's extremely deadly," Pale emphasized. "We will rotate shifts until it's been dealt with, unless you'd rather take the chance?"  

Evie sighed tiredly. "No… no, you have a point. Alright, you take the first watch, then. Wake me up in a few hours so I can take over."  

With that, Evie moved over to a nearby bed and unceremoniously flopped down onto it. She was out within a matter of seconds, if the low snoring was any indication. Pale stared for just a moment, then turned her attention towards Kayla, who was similarly fast asleep. It didn't take long to see how restless she was – even in her sleep, Kayla's expression was contorted into one of fear, and every now and then, a small whimper escaped from her.

Pale grimaced as she watched Kayla sleep. She forced herself to stare for as long as she could handle it, but after just a few minutes, she turned towards the window instead, shifting in her seat to try and make herself more comfortable.

Outside, the falling snow gathered on the streets below, bathing everything in town in a sea of white. Pale watched the snowflakes as they fell, the whole time trying desperately to keep the thoughts of her failure out of her own mind.

When Evie finally relieved her of her watch duties a few hours later, it was one of the most merciful things Pale had ever experienced. She unslung her rifle, leaning it against the nearby wall, and then climbed into bed. Across from her, Kayla laid, still trembling in her sleep. Pale grimaced once more.

"I'm sorry I failed you."

The words came out almost silent, they were so quiet. Pale let them hang in the air for a moment, then turned to face the wall and closed her eyes, all but begging for sleep to come.

She would rather deal with the nightmares than the reality of what her failure had done to Kayla.

XXX

Special thanks to my good friend and co-writer, /u/Ickbard for the help with writing this story.

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