by Jim C. Hines
Their landing should have scared off any wild animals, including feral humans. But once the local predators realized Mops and her team were alone, and that human beings had stopped raining from the sky . . .
She used eye movement to switch to tactical mode. Her team’s vital signs, armament, and ammo counts appeared in the lower left corner of her vision. Next, she drew her pistol, switched off the safety, and pointed at a nearby tree. Crosshairs appeared on the trunk, confirming the link between gun and visor.
Ankle-deep snow crunched beneath her boots as she hiked toward the flooded road she’d spotted on the way down. With one hand, she unsealed her collar from her visor and inhaled her first breath of Earth air in twelve years.
The influx of cold filling her lungs made her gasp. When she exhaled, her breath turned to fog. The air had a sharp scent she eventually identified as coming from the trees, specifically the ones covered in green needles. Beneath that overpowering smell were others: rotted vegetation and animal musk and countless more.
Mops had grown all too familiar with the smells of various Alliance species. But the smells on a ship, while at times intense, were limited in number. A planet’s air carried the scents of millions of species of plants and animals, along with whatever dust and chemicals the wind picked up in its travel.
The ground sloped down toward the flooded road. The snow cover was thinner here, revealing gnarled tree roots and broken cement. Trees bowed over the water, their bare branches intertwining overhead.
Mops took another step, and her foot shot out like she’d trod in a Glacidae fear-trail. For the second time in minutes, she found herself on her back, staring up at the stars. Her only consolation was that nobody had seen it.
“There appears to be a layer of ice on the rocks beneath the snow.”
Almost nobody. “Thank you for that observation.”
She’d slid down to the edge of the water, her boots cracking through the thin crust of ice. She sat up and tested her limbs. Her left arm felt bruised, but nothing was broken. “Why couldn’t my ancestors build roads above the water table?”
“Humans managed the water levels in settled areas, storing much of it for consumption and diverting the rest. As their technology failed, the water would have risen. Rising sea levels compounded the problem.”
She climbed carefully up from the water, using a sapling for support. She’d only gone a few steps when a movement alert lit up her visor.
One hand gripped her pistol as she studied the ruins of a collapsed bridge up ahead. The range finder put it twenty-six meters away. Three small shapes crawled over the broken metal and concrete.
Earth had more potential threats than she could count. EMC ships were named after the most dangerous, and they had names to last another century. Her mind raced through the list, from poisonous frogs to scorpions to hippopotami . . . though she was pretty sure hippos were larger than these things.
More creatures crept from the rubble. Doc snapped and magnified one, enhancing the image. Floppy black ears framed small black eyes. Muddy fur stood up like rusty nails along the back of the overlong body. The lips were pulled back to reveal pale gums and an array of needlelike teeth. Her mic picked up a low growl. “What the hell are they?”
“My database of Earth species is incomplete. It’s clearly a mammalian pack animal. The teeth exclude it from order Rodentia.”
“They could have mutated. Who knows what they’ve been exposed to over the decades as human waste facilities broke down.” She took another step, and the growls grew louder. “Territorial little clods, aren’t they?”
The threat counter on her display had climbed to twenty. Mops moved sideways, planning to hike around and avoid the confrontation.
One of the animals let out a high-pitched yip. This startled another into movement, and it ended up sliding down the rocks into the water. Mops winced in sympathy.
The thing scrambled out, shook itself off, and—apparently deciding Mops was the source of its trouble—charged her.
Mops lined up a shot. The gyroscopes built into the pistol stabilized her aim as she tracked the creature.
“They’re dogs!”
“What?” She hesitated, and in that moment the dog pounced. Small jaws clamped onto her pants, just above her boots. The dog snarled and shook its head, trying to either tear through the material or drag her to the ground. “I’ve read about dogs. I thought they were bigger.”
More dogs crept toward her, emboldened by the first.
“Humans bred a wide range of dogs, hundreds of drastically different varieties. I believe these are descendants of the subset known as dachshunds or, colloquially, as wiener dogs.”
Three more dogs clamped onto her legs. EMC combat uniforms were built to turn metal and ceramic blades, which kept the teeth from reaching her skin. But eventually they’d bring her down with sheer weight and numbers, and one of them would find their way through the seams. “Humans kept these things as pets?”
“I assume domesticated dogs were trained not to eat people. Once humanity went feral, dogs would have either followed suit or died out. Interesting that this particular breed succeeded. Possibly because they’re better able to hide and pursue small game.”
She grabbed one of the squirming dogs by the scruff and yanked it free. One of its eyes was a cloudy white. The thick, matted fur sticking up from its scalp looked more like Glacidae spines than mammalian hair. Strings of slobber swung from the lower jaw. Its teeth seemed to point in every direction, and several were missing entirely.
“I don’t want to kill them if I don’t have to.” More dogs swarmed onto her, climbing their packmates like a ladder.
“Perhaps a quick swim in the river?”
“Look at the one who fell in. The poor thing’s shivering.” Mops thought back to one of the first times she’d read about dogs. It had been during her first year on Stepping Stone, before she transferred to the Pufferfish. The Krakau maintained a library of Earth literature they’d translated into Human. This had been a children’s book about a particularly cowardly dog . . .
She sheathed her gun and grabbed a half-meter nozzle from her equipment harness. Tugging the hose from the portable compressor mounted on her hip, she secured the hose to the nozzle.
“You’re going to inflate them?”
“Not exactly.” She adjusted the settings, hit the switch, and pointed the nozzle at the dachshunds on her left leg.
The dogs shot away like they’d been launched from an A-gun. Within seconds, she stood alone once more. Only the thick layer of fur, slobber, and mud on her uniform proved the dogs had been there.
“I don’t understand.”
“Vacuum cleaner.” Mops hit the off switch. “The traditional nemesis of the dog.”
“I thought cats were dogs’ arch-enemies.”
She continued walking, wand ready. Shining eyes glared from the safety of the bridge. They snarled and growled with tiny impotent fury, but none ventured into the open to face the roar of her vacuum. “Doc?”
“Yes, Mops?”
“This planet is messed up.”
“Yes, Mops.”
* * *
Mops reached the rendezvous without further incident, aside from a large, hooting bird that burst from the trees and startled her so much she almost fell into the river. She found Rubin waiting on a cracked concrete bench outside a large fenced-in structure, a stadium or arena of some kind.
Rubin stood as Mops approached. “No sign of ferals, sir. The biggest thing I’ve seen, aside from you, was a rat. I tried to feed it, but it ran away.”
“Save your rations. We don’t know how long they’ll need to last.” Speaking of which . . . Mops took the end of the bench and pulled a food tube from her pack. Opening a slot in the front of her suit, she screwed the end of the tube into the feeding port in her abdomen. A press of a button on
the end of the tube triggered the slow release of its contents.
“I was hoping to see more of Earth’s animals,” Rubin continued. “Zebras and snakes and whales and something called a platypus. But many of the larger animals will be in hibernation. Insects go dormant in the cold. Birds move to warmer parts of the planet.”
“Tell that to the one that dive-bombed my head.”
Rubin perked up. “Did you get a good look? Could you share the video?”
“On it,” said Doc.
While Rubin oohed over the bird, Wolf arrived, rifle clutched in both hands. She was out of breath and dripping wet. Cate clung to her back, arms locked around Wolf’s shoulders.
Mops came to her feet. “What happened?”
“Crossed a river and fell through the ice.” Wolf dropped to one knee, letting Cate climb down. “Woke my passenger right up.”
“You savages evolved for these temperatures,” Cate complained. Steam rose from his armor. His wings hung like damp cloth. Frost brushed fractal spikes around the edges. The water had caused Wolf’s graffiti to run, decorating his face with streaks of black ink. “I did not.”
“A cold, wet Prodryan is a pitiful thing,” said Wolf. “I almost felt sorry for him. Then he started talking again.”
Mops checked her visor for Monroe’s position. He’d been closer and should have reached them before Wolf. “Monroe, are you all right?”
Wolf and Rubin both turned to listen.
“Banged my head during landing,” Monroe replied, his words tight. “Threw off my balance. I keep curving to the left. Don’t worry, I’ll catch up soon.”
“I’m sending Wolf to meet you.”
“That’s not necessary, sir. I’m less than half a kilometer out. Now that I know about the problem, I can compensate.”
Mops gestured for Wolf to go. She threw a quick salute, shouldered her weapon, and headed out. “Monroe, you know what happens when Wolf gets bored. This is as much for our safety and protection as yours.”
Wolf threw an obscene gesture over her shoulder. Mops pretended not to see it.
“Understood, sir.” Monroe’s pause suggested he wasn’t buying it, but he was too much the soldier to argue.
“What now?” Cate demanded. “Your plan is in tatters. Will your remaining crew attempt to retrieve us, or will they make off with your ship?”
“They’d better not come after us. The Pufferfish isn’t designed for planetary landings, and you saw what happened to our shuttle.” Mops removed the now-empty food tube and returned it to her pack.
“It’s not my responsibility to find a way out of this disaster,” Cate snapped. “It’s yours.”
Mops stood, sealed her uniform front, and walked slowly toward Cate until she could smell the Prodryan’s stale breath and the frigid river water dripping from his body. “Then I suggest you shut up and let me do my job.”
“Which job?” Cate shot back. “Mopping up this mess of a planet, or leading your team into disaster? According to your files, you’re well-trained for the former, but you seem to have a natural gift for the latter.”
“So it seems,” Mops said easily. “I’ve discovered a number of talents since I took command. At the Battle of Dobranok four months ago, I discovered I have a knack for blowing up Prodryans.”
Cate paused, then took a step back. “That is an excellent point.”
“Let’s focus on the immediate goal,” said Mops. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and a lost human to rescue.”
“A human who will likely be confused and frightened,” added Rubin. “Whatever education they might have received from the Krakau after being cured, it wouldn’t be enough to prepare them for life on present-day Earth. They may already be dead.”
“In which case we retrieve their body,” Mops said firmly. Assuming the planet’s scavengers had left anything to find.
“Nicely done, Captain,” said Doc. “Rubin’s blood pressure has dropped, indicating increased confidence in your leadership. Cate appears to have submitted to you as the dominant warrior.”
“Thanks.”
“You realize I can read your blood pressure, too?”
Mops stepped away from the others, speaking softly enough that only Doc should be able to pick up the sound. “This mission was a long shot even with a working shuttle and all our supplies. What the hell am I supposed to do now—build a shuttle out of sticks and scrap metal? Our comm units have a range of five kilometers, so I can’t even talk to the ship.”
“Maybe if you shout really loud . . .”
“Loud enough for the sound to travel through the vacuum of space?”
“Better have Wolf do the shouting. She’s louder than you.”
Mops snorted. “This planet scares the shit out of me, Doc.”
“The planet or its inhabitants?”
“Both.” She peered into a dark crack in the concrete wall of the stadium. Anything could be sleeping inside, from rats or wild dogs to feral humans. “I’ve had nightmares about this.”
“About being shot down while following a Prodryan spy to retrieve a cured human from a ruined library? How prescient of you.”
“About being trapped on Earth. Asshole.”
“It could be worse. You could be trapped here without me.” After a long pause, he added, “And the others, of course.”
There were other ships on the planet. All she had to do was break into Fleet Admiral Sage’s top-secret laboratory and steal whatever they had on hand that was spaceworthy. Then, assuming they survived, they could worry about flying the damn thing.
“You think we can reach the library before sunrise?”
“Doubtful, given Cate’s average walking pace and Monroe’s difficulties.”
For now, the trees provided decent cover from Krakau satellites, but the library had been in a more open, unprotected area. They’d be better off resting during the day. Darkness was no guarantee of safety, but it might help. “We’ll get as close as we can, then make camp.”
“I wonder if Prodryans have campfire songs.”
Mops considered this. “Given what we’ve seen of Prodryan poetry, I think I’d rather be eaten by dachshunds.”
Grom sat coiled in the captain’s chair. For human furniture, it was surprisingly comfortable.
The bridge had gone silent, save for Kumar’s loud human breathing and the slither of Azure’s tentacles moving over the tactical console.
“That wasn’t part of the plan,” Azure whispered.
Grom’s legs rattled as they watched the last fragments of the shuttle fall away into darkness. “The captain’s plans don’t generally involve blowing herself up, no.”
Kumar looked up from navigation as the viewscreen looped back to the beginning of the shuttle launch, replaying the event yet again. “There’s too much debris from the explosion. Several masses fell away before the missile strike. It could have been them jumping clear. Or it could have been the shuttle falling apart from plasma and A-gun fire.”
“That memory crystal Cate provided was supposed to protect us,” said Azure. “If it failed the captain, how long before it fails us? Those fighters are still searching the area, and Stepping Stone hasn’t stopped scanning.”
“It’s hard to troubleshoot what went wrong without knowing what was on that crystal and how it’s supposed to hide us from the Krakau,” said Kumar. “Maybe it was defective.”
“It wasn’t the crystal.” Grom slid from the chair and joined Azure at Tactical. “Look at your display. What do you see?”
“Us. Earth. Stepping Stone. Far too many fighters.”
“Now look at what you don’t see.” Grom tilted their body toward the main screen. “There are hundreds of old satellites orbiting the planet. There used to be more, but every year the orbits decay. Our navigation system automatically tracks them to avoid colli
sions, but if you tried to show them all on screen, it would clog up your display.”
“Like a Quetzalus using a Merraban toilet,” suggested Kumar. “The volume of material exceeds the capacity of—”
“Yes, thank you.” Grom wondered how long it would take to claw that image from their mind. “Admiral Pachelbel snuck a few lines of code into one of the navigation software updates Stepping Stone pushed out a few weeks back. When Captain Adamopoulos switched us back to the Pufferfish’s ID beacon, every Alliance scanner automatically reclassified us as old Earth space junk and cleared us from tactical and threat displays.”
Azure considered this. “Given the condition of the ship, that’s not too far from the truth.”
“What if they scan for space junk?” asked Kumar.
“We should show up as one of a hundred unimportant blips.”
Kumar bobbed his head. “And the shuttle?”
Grom slumped. “The shuttle switched over to the same ID beacon. It should have vanished just like the Pufferfish.”
“How are beacon codes created?” asked Azure. “Do they encode the type of ship, some form of checksum or internal verification?”
Grom clicked their limbs together. “My background is in computing hardware and routine updates. I never studied ID beacon protocols.”
“You think the shuttle broadcast a modified code?” asked Kumar. “Automatically adding a tag to identify it as a shuttle instead of a cruiser?”
“We may not be qualified to troubleshoot exactly what went wrong,” Grom admitted. “But I believe we should assume the captain survived and do what we can to find and assist her from here.”
“Why?” asked Azure.
“Primarily because Captain Adamopoulos has proven herself to be very stubborn about not dying,” said Grom.
“You said primarily,” Kumar pointed out. “Is there another reason?”
Grom twisted back toward the captain’s chair, trying not to look at all of the empty bridge stations. They’d installed shortcuts and macros, trying to simplify the process of keeping the ship going, but there were limits. “Because there’s no way the three of us can run the Pufferfish alone. If the shuttle team is dead, so are we.”