by Tony Daniel
Their route took them within a hundred or so kilometers of Poliri, a scattershot island group. The maps they had from satellite showed it to be a handsome, lush green paradise, not unlike the Bahamas. They circled the roots of a massive active peak. Its sides warmed the water around it ten degrees above the ambient sea. Curious herds of Deeps floated over to them to investigate what must have looked like an android whale. A couple of the little ones bumped it playfully, knocking unwary crew off their feet.
“Get lost,” Nurys murmured.
“God, they’re huge!” Esperanza said, and whistled.
Reports from orbit sounded like the Truch warships were holding the Lits at bay. Nurys worried that if they succeeded in driving the Lits off that there might be a crackdown in other ship traffic. She was not going to let the Giliks take off without them. Colorado was outfitted for six months, but that was a worst-case scenario.
“Incoming!” Lim shouted. Nurys clutched the sides of her command chair. Everyone else dove for a stationary hold. A barrage of small barrels fell into the sea not far ahead of them.
“Hard to starboard!” she commanded. The helm officer responded. Horns and flashing lights warned everyone to secure themselves as the sub veered under their feet.
In the distance, the depth charges detonated. Nurys saw the fire blossom just before the concussion hit them. The sub heeled over almost thirty degrees before righting itself. Chatter from all stations came in. A minor leak erupted in the head, causing a backwash of sewage that swamped one of the junior officers who was trapped by the alert on the pot. She listened to the swearing and laughing, but her eyes were fixed on the scope. Two of the young Deeps that had been swimming alongside their hull had been hit by the shrapnel. Black-green blood seeped out of gashes on their long, dark sides. Helplessly, she watched as they wriggled feebly, then their bodies floated upward. They were just babies. Her throat tightened.
“Damn it,” Esperanza said. “That is effed up.”
“That’s why we’re here, people!” Nurys said, forcibly pushing her emotions deep inside. “You got that?”
“Yes, sir!” the bridge crew chorused.
“Damage reports!”
“. . . This continuing bombardment is harmful to all life on this world!” Samawa’s gravelly voice came suddenly from the communication array. On the screen, a mother Deep showed open signs of distress as she tried to support her shining newborn on a sandy beach. The infant moved feebly as Lits, dwarfed by its size, rushed to support it. “Even the newest children are being injured by this unnecessary war!”
“Damn him!” Nurys exclaimed. “He’s telling them where he is! Get on the horn to Corkan and tell her to shut him up!”
But the Truchs were ahead of her. In the middle of a sentence, Samawa’s diatribe was cut off. The screen went blank. Nurys’s heart sank.
“Did we lose them?” she asked. “Reports!”
“Look at this, sir,” Lim called. The view on her telemetry screen turned to a view from space. He circled the same island group they were passing. One of the volcanic peaks had been hit. As she watched, another massive puff of smoke exploded outward, taking out most of the ancient caldera.
Furuki looked up, an expression of triumph on his face.
“Got Corkan, sir. That wasn’t Sokoiri at all, just one of Samawa’s repeater stations. The Truchs still haven’t figured out where he is. And she’ll try, sir. Really. She’ll try.”
“About two hundred kilometers from our destination, sir,” Abram reported at shift change on Day Five. “We ought to make the harbor by tonight.”
“Notify Healer Corkan to get ready,” Nurys said. She had been operating on a knife’s edge ever since the hit on Poliri. All of them were ready to have the mission accomplished and over with. “Tell them I want them on the beach when we surface.”
“Aye, sir.”
Almost on schedule, another sweep came toward them from the west. Lim offered her his best suggestions for a hiding place, but they weren’t close enough. A random ping hit them from the northeast. Nine flyers circled around in formation, three trios. Almost instantly, the depth charges started falling again. One hit just off the port bow, between the Colorado and the underwater slope of an island. The concussion echoed back on the sub, making it heel over almost sixty degrees. Nurys hung on tight. Lim was thrown out of his seat and smacked into the wall. He rocked back and forth, holding onto his wrist, which hung at a bad angle.
“Medic to the bridge!” Nurys barked into her microphone. “Damage reports!”
Lim wasn’t the only casualty. A few other broken bones and a lot of bruises were reported. In the torpedo bay, a leak had all hands jumping to stop it.
“All right,” Nurys said, feeling her ire rise. “They think they know we’re here. Let’s confirm it for them. Load sub-to-air missiles! Ascend to a hundred feet. Let’s show these desert bugs what we can do!”
Everyone scrambled to obey her orders. As the small craft came around again, they locked onto the lead flyer.
“Fire!” Nurys said. Bahri hit the button. The sub juddered lightly. On the scope, a jet of bubbles erupted behind the sea-to-air missile. It broke the surface in a split second and burst into the air. On the fire control screen, the camera on the nose of the missile fed back visuals. The red circle triangulated on the lead flyer. Beeping came from the speaker over Bahri’s head.
“Confirming lock,” Bahri said. “Bogey is running.”
A few seconds later, the screen exploded in red and reverted to the terrain map.
“Direct hit,” Bahri confirmed. The other small craft scattered in a random pattern, jetting away from the site in no good order.
“They are manned,” Esperanza said.
“Now we know,” Nurys agreed. “And we scared them. But now they know we’re here. Let’s use that.”
“How, ma’am? I mean, sir? They’ll follow us.”
The captain shook her head. The cadets were so young. “Then let’s give them something to follow. Helm, full speed, heading three degrees north.”
Esperanza gawked. “What? That’s Domiri! It’s the wrong way.”
Nurys raised her eyebrow. “You want them to follow us the right way? Pick out the most likely looking island, one with a cove. We need to make this look legitimate.” And hope that none of the ships in space come down to join the fray, she thought.
Lim made the connection. He had been her very best student. The map of the Domiri group appeared on the scope. In a moment, one of the islands centered on the screen. “This one, sir. It’s not industrial. I don’t see any major life signs above the water line.”
“Make it so, helm,” Nurys said. She strapped in.
They let the enemy ping them again and again as they steamed straight for Domiri. Nurys went from station to station, letting the crew know she was there. The vigorous walkthrough also helped expel the nervous energy she felt. About four hours would do it, as they rose to meet the sweeps, then dove out of sight again at random intervals.
All the youngsters—no, spacers; they were blooded now—worked off their nervous energy, too. The old tub hadn’t been that clean in years. Nurys nodded approval at the three ensigns who looked up from scrubbing the floor of the head. She took a deep breath and smelled only disinfectant. You’d never know it had been covered in shit only a couple of hours before.
True to form, Samawa had found out about his demolished repeater, and railed about that in his frequent uploads. Nurys tuned him out most of the time.
“. . . Thank you to the good people who have contributed funds to the medical volunteers here with me. You are helping to save an innocent species from harm against the bloody marauders who . . . !” came from the speakers as she entered the bridge.
“How’d he ever get the name ‘Serene Samawa’?” Lim was asking Bahri. He sprang to his feet. “Sorry, sir.”
“At ease, Ensign,” Nurys said. “That’s a good question. Research it. It’ll be in your next orals.” She had
to laugh at the dismayed expression on his face. It relaxed the tight muscles in her belly. “Take it easy, Lim. I’m not your teacher any longer. After this mission, you’ll be on assignment on a warpknot. Where are we?”
Relieved, the ensign turned to his station. “They’re still following us, Captain. They haven’t thrown any charges at us in hours, but they’re rotating a patrol. They want to know where we’re going.”
“Good,” Nurys said, pleased at his analysis. “Snorkel up. Let’s get some fresh air in here before we disappear. If you thought the last four hours were a test of your endurance, pull up your panties.”
She had studied the maps during her downtime. They had been following the volcanic fissure toward the islands, but they couldn’t settle down into that. Running parallel and branching off were cooler ones, some of which ran deep. She pulled up the chart she had marked and sent it to all the stations.
“This is where we’re going,” Nurys said, marking the chosen channel in red. “Helm, take us in. We’re going doggo.”
They descended into the fissure. It was a mere crack, barely three times the width of the sub. Nurys held her breath as the helmswoman guided them in. They were running with as few lights as possible. Infrared did little good here; everything was black with cold. Coraloids brushed their sides, but they got down without any scrapes against the native rock. At last, they settled onto the sea floor. Basalt sand puffed up around them. The engines halted, and the lights on the hull went out.
“All hands, we’re going to radio silence,” she announced over the PA. “This is the last sound you are going to hear me make until further notice. No talking, no shouting, no banging, no primal screams.”
Esperanza let out a nervous giggle at the last. Nurys gave her the teacher stare, and she subsided.
“Twelve hours,” she said. “Practice your sign language. Any crisis, text me.”
Twelve hours cut deeply into their remaining hours. Nurys surrendered the bridge to Abram, but she couldn’t relax. Samawa continued his broadcasts, but instead of his rhetoric pouring out of the speakers, the crew followed it on closed caption. Off duty, the kids played video games with the sound off, encouraging or jeering at one another with silent gestures. They were doing a great job, but it felt like walking through a ghost town.
The newly scrubbed head began to stink because they didn’t dare flush the full cans. Nurys knew perfectly well the crew was also pissing in the washing machine and down the sinks to compensate.
The rest of the sea life found the silent giant in their midst to be a puzzle. A curious Deep or two came by to nudge them. When the sub didn’t respond, they tried nuzzling it, then let out low, musical moans as though mourning it. For some reason, Nurys found that oddly touching.
They think we’re dead, she thought. And they care.
Overhead, the Truchs were going ballistic. She had led them to believe that their target, on its straight heading, would appear from time to time. The passive scopes picked up swoops and sweeps that grew more frantic as the hours passed.
Boom!
The first explosion overhead at hour five startled Nurys awake in her bunk, but didn’t surprise her. She glanced at the ceiling, then at the screen set in the wall beside her. Bogeys flew overhead, swooping close to the surface. Depth charges filled the sea, rocking the sub back and forth in its sandy cradle.
The pounding made Nurys’s ears ring. She stuffed earplugs in and did her best to go back to sleep. Seven hours to go. Orders from Abram to repair a gasket in the forward torpedo bay scrolled along the bottom of the screen in red. She went back to sleep, and dreamed of being trapped inside a kettle drum during the longest concert ever performed. The maestro at the head of the orchestra bowed to thunderous applause from the audience, then silence.
“They’re bombarding the island group,” Lim confirmed by text when she entered the bridge. Abrams, looking weary, signed off and headed back to his own bunk.
Nurys settled into her chair and cleared her throat. The bridge crew all but jumped at the sound.
“Well done, all. Time’s up! Full about, and make full speed for Sokoiri. Let’s go get our package and get out of here.”
Totally against protocol, the crew cheered. The joyful noise spread down the long body of the boat, accompanied by a few screeches and a lot of flushing. The chrono showed they were within a few hours of magic time to retrieve the medics and get back to the Gilik ship.
Also against protocol, Nurys insisted on suiting up in scuba gear to join two other divers at the release hatch. The Colorado remained submerged, in case they got a few bogeys overhead.
“Sir, you shouldn’t come ashore,” C.O.B Dodd said, his freckled face flushing. “Leave it to us.”
Nurys’s lips were set as she pulled the rubber coif tight over her head and settled the air pack on her shoulders. “I just got off the comm circuit with Corkan. You’d better believe I’m coming ashore with you.”
The hatch opened and flooded around them. Nurys had been a scuba diver since she was a kid. The feeling of the water rushing down onto her head should have felt normal, but the knowledge that this was an alien sea made tingles run down her body.
Dodd deployed the inflatable, then gave her a hand into it. The complement of Lits was sixteen, so Corkan had said. Plenty of room to take them aboard and get them into the sub.
The moment she swam out of the sub, she realized they were not alone. The bay was full of black-pelted Deeps, from some the size of the boat down to little ones half the size of a school bus. Their curiosity was palpable, but they kept their distance, hovering, their movement driven by billions of foot-long cilia like the tails of the fishoids.
“Goddamn it, they look like giant bacteria!” Dodd said.
Nurys had to concur that they did, but they felt like big, friendly cows in a field.
The rubber boat had a small outboard motor that drove them across the bay toward the narrow strip of sand. Osteen, the other NCO, steered them in past the mothers and young. Giant snouts surfaced every few meters to nudge the boat or spray them with friendly snorts of sea water. Up close to the charcoal-gray hides, she saw what looked like chemical burns on the mothers, and even a few of the young. Her heart went out to them, but she couldn’t let pity get in the way of the mission.
Almost the entire contingent of Lits was on the water’s edge when they rode up on the sand. Nurys clambered out. Even before she had taken off her mask, one of the Lits rushed toward them and enveloped her in a bear hug. They even looked like bears, with their thickset, dark-furred bodies and snouted faces. Their big eyes, with the nictating membrane opening and closing independently from their eyelids, gave them the facial expressions of seals or otters. They plunged into the surf to clean foam and blood off their fur before barreling toward the humans, shouting happily.
“I am so glad to meet you, captain!” Corkan said, though her voice came from the translator slung on Nurys’s shoulder. She pulled the human along with her webby paw as others crowded around, patting her on the head and back. “Come and see our patients! They are waiting to know you.”
“We don’t have time for that, Healer,” Nurys said, although her natural instincts wanted to run and see every single one of them. Aliens! She was walking among aliens! Two kinds! Her contact with the Giliks had been brief and distant throughout the long transit from Earth, not at all satisfying the itch of first contact. This was the first time she had touched someone who had been born under the light of a different sun. Even Dodd, a hardened old swab, looked as starstruck as a kid as two of the Lit medics hugged him and rubbed their furry faces against his. She wished she could enjoy the moment. “We need to get you and Samawa off this island right away!”
“No, no, I told you,” Corkan said, her tone jovial, embracing Nurys with one meaty arm. “We do not leave. I warned you not to come all this way for nothing!”
“Have pity for the wounded.” A magnificent, broad-shouldered Lit rose from spraying white foam on the b
ack of a small Deep resting on the beach and washed the matter from his paws. The Deep’s worried mother hovered in the bay, her long nose the only part out of the water. He gestured a little farther down the beach, where a couple of undersized fetuses lay unmoving. “You see what we are dealing with.”
“Serene Samawa,” Nurys said, saluting him formally. “I am Captain Nurys of the USS Colorado, from Earth. On behalf of your own government, I am here to request that you return with me to our transport ship and leave this planet immediately.”
The deep brown eyes sighted down his snout at her with a sorrowful expression. “My government knows my answer. We are here to help this race to survive! They will die without our help.”
He was used to being obeyed, she could tell, but so was she. She fixed him with her best teacher gaze.
“Sir. You are in danger. If you insist on staying here, you’ll become a target or a martyr, and the Deeps will die anyhow. Your family will suffer. Your people, including the audience for your broadcasts, will lose heart. It’s only a matter of time before the Truchs figure out we sent them on a snark hunt and start searching the other islands to find you.”
Samawa listened carefully as her translator spat out her paragraph in their husky language. The large eyes narrowed.
“What is a snark?”
“Come back after the battle is won,” Nurys said, sensing every minute passing as a possibility that the Giliks would take off without them. “You can save the next generation, but if you don’t leave, you’re putting them in more danger than if you left them alone.”
Samawa hesitated. He glanced back at the young Deep on the sand, then turned sad eyes to Nurys.
“More will die of the poison.”
“Let your government deal with that,” Nurys said, knowing exactly how she felt. If her own students had been the wounded, she would have wanted to do the same. “That’s their job. Yours is to . . . to inspire.”
“They’ve done a terrible job so far!” Samawa said, his voice echoing over the beach. “Show me that they care! If not, let me stay!”