by Jim C. Hines
* * *
Mops took Monroe’s hand, letting him help her into the escape shuttle. The other Krakau were strapped into egg-shaped seats, their limbs twined around metal support bars and grab handles. The stretchers and their occupants had been secured to the floor near the back. It didn’t leave much room to move about, but Mops wasn’t going to complain.
Rubin hauled Greensleeves on board while Mops hobbled after Monroe toward the cockpit.
“Everything’s ready to go, but I’m not authorized for manual control,” said Monroe. “Our only option is the preprogrammed escape sequence. Pull that lever, press this button, and we’ll be on our way to Stepping Stone.”
Mops collapsed into the copilot seat, an uncomfortable array of metal bars designed for Krakau limbs. “What about our prisoners?”
“If any of them know how to override this thing, they’re not talking.”
Mops reached for the lever he’d indicated. “Let’s get the hell out of here before those ferals come for dessert.”
The interior lighting dimmed. Additional gauges and indicator lights brightened the horseshoe-shaped console. The main screen switched to an exterior view.
Monroe hit the launch button. Grav plates and thrusters made Mops’ gut hiccup into her chest. Medlab Five—no, Armstrong Space Center shrank beneath them. The Glacidae had crawled toward the launch pad, but the rest of the ferals continued to fight and feed by the hangar.
“I don’t suppose you got communications sorted out while I was playing chase with ferals?” asked Mops.
“The launch sends out an automated distress beacon.” Monroe pointed to Mops’ side of the console. “Communications controls are here, but they’re not laid out like the ones on the Pufferfish.”
“How long until we reach Stepping Stone?”
“Two hours, seventeen minutes, given the orbital position and velocity of the station and the intercept course on the secondary screen.”
Two hours and seventeen minutes to either gain control of the shuttle or contact the Pufferfish. Otherwise, everything they’d done was for nothing.
Monroe studied the controls. “I tried searching for help menus. No luck so far.”
“Doc, do you have any of Puffy’s communications tutorials saved?”
“My memory isn’t limitless. It only seems that way when compared to humans. I’m sure the Pufferfish has lessons on this particular shuttle model, but I’d need to synch with the ship to grab them.”
“The Pufferfish should be picking up the emergency beacon,” said Monroe. “Could we modify the signal? Embed some kind of code?”
“I’m not sure there’s a code for, ‘Found a group of uninfected human librarians living in an old theme park emergency shelter. Also, Admiral Sage is working on turning other races feral in preparation for escalating hostilities with the Prodryans.’”
“I think I’ve seen Wolf using a button that looked like this.” Monroe reached past her to tap a blue button. “Anything?”
His voice echoed through the shuttle. From the back, Greensleeves yelled, “If you’re gonna use the intercom, would you mind turning down the volume?”
“Sorry.” Monroe hit the button again, and it went dark. “Should we ask one of the Krakau for help? I don’t trust them, but they might know their way around communications.”
A diamond-shaped indicator flashed red. Mops looked at Monroe. “Did you do that?”
“I don’t think . . . maybe?” He shrugged.
Mops pressed the red diamond, and a new image appeared on the screen.
Fleet Admiral Belle-Bonne Sage stared at them. Her curved beak clicked shut, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say. The orange skin of her face and torso turned brown. Without looking away, she extended one tentacle to the console behind her, adjusting one of the controls. Her beak opened again. Closed again. Finally, she said, “I suppose I should have anticipated this.”
Mops didn’t respond.
“You should know, Adamopoulos, my troops successfully captured your librarian friends twenty minutes ago, along with Technician Mozart and the Prodryan you’ve been colluding with.”
“Tell her you didn’t get that. Say you’re getting an error message that the translator buffer needs to be reset.”
Mops relayed the message, trusting Doc to have a good reason.
Sage muttered to herself, then turned to check something. “You should see a yellow toggle slider,” she said slowly. “Third row, second from the left. Pull it all the way down, then release. When it blinks, tap twice to confirm.”
“Copy that.” Mops went through the motions. “Admiral, those librarians are the last of humanity as it . . . as we were meant to be. Let them go, and I’ll give you the Pufferfish.”
“As you’ll be in my grasp shortly regardless, I don’t see the need to negotiate.”
“Tell her the translator glitched. Now it’s talking too fast, making her sound like a squeaking mouse.”
Sage twisted her tentacles in frustration. Speaking even slower, she asked, “What did you do to break that shuttle so badly?”
Monroe leaned in to say, “I . . . might have kicked it a few times trying to figure out the launch sequence.”
“Fucking humans.” Sage extended her tentacles.
“I didn’t get that,” said Mops.
“You should see a rotary control in the lower left corner of the communications section,” said Sage, continuing to drag out her words. “Tap and rotate ninety degrees.”
Mops pretended to do so.
“Does that fix the problem?”
Mops whispered, “Does it?”
“It does. Thank you.”
“Much better, Admiral.”
“Stepping Stone is tracking you, Adamopoulos,” said Sage. “I’d prefer to take you in alive, but if you deviate from your course in any way, we will destroy that shuttle. Do you understand?”
“Completely. Mops out.” She stared at the console, and hesitated.
“It’s the red diamond-shaped button to your left,” Sage snapped.
Mops pressed the button, and Sage vanished. “Doc, please tell me you were doing more than just messing with the admiral. Not that I object to getting on her nerves, but—”
“I may not have access to the Pufferfish tutorials, but I’ve observed Wolf’s work at communications. By mapping known controls between the shuttle console and that of the Pufferfish, I’ve been able to deduce additional functionality.”
An exhausted laugh bubbled up from Mops’ chest. “Doc, I think I love you.”
“Of course you do.”
“Can you get me a secure connection to the Pufferfish?”
“Not without knowing the ship’s precise location. This is an EMC shuttle. It has the same tracking updates as the rest of the fleet, including the modified code rendering the Pufferfish effectively invisible.”
“What about an encrypted broadcast?” asked Monroe. “Send a message to the whole system, but make it one only Kumar and the others can understand.”
Mops hadn’t realized Doc was sharing their conversation with him, but it made sense. “Stepping Stone has better encryption and decryption software than anything on the Pufferfish. More importantly, Stepping Stone has people who know how to use that software.”
“I have a suggestion that bypasses the need for human/software interaction.”
“Explain,” said Mops.
“Another copy of me is active on the Pufferfish. I’ll choose the encryption technique—a book cipher from my favorite Glacidae hibernation romance saga. My counterpart, once he deduces the message could be from me, will consider how he would encrypt a message in my position. I estimate he should be able to translate the code and establish communications in under three minutes.”
Monroe’s brow wrinkled. “What if you’re not monitor
ing communications on the Pufferfish?”
“You think I’d trust a trio of organics to handle everything? I guarantee I’ve been keeping an eye on all bridge systems nonstop since you left.”
Mops reached for the controls. “Sounds good to me. Tell me what to do to get you talking to yourself.”
* * *
It was closer to four minutes before the red indicator lit up with an incoming direct transmission. Mops slapped the console, and a vision of Sanjeev Kumar appeared on the screen. Grom and Azure stood behind him, pressed up against either shoulder. “Captain?”
All three appeared healthy. What she could see of the bridge behind them was more or less intact. “Doc is sending a data dump about what we’ve found here. There’s a lot to catch up on. I need you to prepare a broadcast of that data to Dobranok, Cuixique, Nurgistarnoq, and Solikor-zi. Hold off transmitting until I give the order, or if you don’t hear from us within—”
“Captain,” Kumar interrupted. “We’ve been—”
“I don’t have much time, Kumar. This is our only leverage against Admiral Sage. Can you confirm receipt of Doc’s data?”
Azure moved away. “Receiving now. Kumar, you should tell the captain—”
“I’m trying,” said Kumar.
“Our shuttle is locked into a rendezvous with Stepping Stone,” Mops continued. “Once they’ve brought us in, I’ll need you to—”
“Stand by, sir.” The screen went blank.
Mops tilted her head. “Did he just put me on hold?”
“Technically, he’s acting captain of the Pufferfish,” Monroe pointed out. “And, no offense, but you weren’t letting the man finish a sentence.”
Kumar appeared again. The image split in half, shrinking Kumar to one side for a three-way communications link. In the other half, covered in dust, sweat, and bruises, Wolf nodded in greeting.
Mops stared at them both. She searched for words, eventually producing a confused, “How?”
“I led a mission to seize the Krakau transport ship,” said Wolf, her words so perfectly matter-of-fact Mops knew she’d been practicing. “All Krakau troops have been disarmed and secured. The librarians have them under guard in the back.”
Cate hunched behind Wolf, looking much the worse for wear, but it was Wolf who held Mops’ attention. Beneath the usual aggression and bravado was something new. A tension around the mouth. A deepening of the lines furrowing her brow.
“What happened?” Mops asked, her voice gentle.
Wolf glanced away, a moment of vulnerability that lasted just long enough to confirm Mops’ intuition. “Things didn’t go as smoothly as I’d hoped down there, but we can talk about that later.”
“All right.” Mops shook her head. “How did you establish contact with the Pufferfish?”
Wolf grinned. “Double barrel roll, followed by a quick drop.”
Mops turned to Monroe, who shrugged.
“It’s Grom’s favorite move in Black Hole Run IV,” said Wolf. “It usually works against the computer, but I blow Grom away every time they try it against me in player versus player. Before we left, I’d been giving Grom shit about how predictable they were, so I knew they’d recognize the maneuver and realize I was flying the ship. Well, technically one of the Krakau is flying, but I’m the one telling her what to do.”
“Enough of your self-aggrandizing,” complained Cate. “Tell your captain about my plan.”
“Cate has a plan?” asked Mops.
Wolf scratched her scalp, leaving her hair even spikier than usual. “I hate to say it, but it’s pretty good.”
“I agree,” said Kumar. “The Pufferfish was moving into position to assist when we received your call.”
“All right.” Mops leaned forward. “Impress me.”
* * *
Stepping Stone Station reminded Mops of an inverted jellyfish. The bulk of the station was a broad, bowl-shaped structure half a kilometer in diameter. The rim bristled with enormous antennae and flexible tubes, hoses, and docking corridors, several of which were attached to larger EMC vessels. Mops recognized the EMCS Taipan and the bloated-caterpillar shape of a Nusuran cargo ship.
A smaller tactical display showed both the troop transport and the shuttle floating just outside the station.
“What’s the delay?” shouted Bev. “I need to use the bathroom, and I’d rather not risk my life with this Krakau plumbing.”
“They’re bringing both ships in together,” said Mops. “That way Sage gets all of her prisoners in one bay.”
“Are we really surrendering to Fleet Admiral Sage?” asked Rubin.
“Not exactly.”
The shuttle jolted into motion again, gliding toward the maw of the main docking bay.
The landing was as smooth as any Mops could remember. If not for two brief hiccups in gravity—accompanied by the sound of a spacesick Krakau from the back of the shuttle—she wouldn’t have known they’d touched down.
After several minutes, a message on the main screen announced that the bay was fully pressurized. A booming voice from outside commanded them to power down all systems and disembark.
Mops and Rubin made their way to the hatch while Monroe finished shutting down the ship. “Everyone else stay inside for now,” Mops ordered. “Monroe will monitor the situation via comm. Bev, if any of the Krakau start causing trouble, you have my permission to flush them down their own plumbing.”
Rubin cranked open the hatch and exited first. She examined the bay, then turned back to Mops. “It’s clear.”
The gravity was less than Earth’s, easing the strain on Mops’ battered limbs as she followed Rubin down. Soft red light strips covered the floor, helping to segment and organize the bay. The only other ship was the bulky troop transport, sitting roughly ten meters away.
The bay walls were the brown rough-stone texture the Krakau liked, with no hard angles anywhere. Mops spotted the large intake/outflow vents in the ceiling and the base of the walls, where air could be pumped in and out. If Sage wanted to, she could depressurize this place and kill Mops where she stood. Or open the bay doors and blow her into space.
She raised her hands and did her best to appear nonthreatening. “We’re here, Sage. We’re unarmed.”
“Captain?” Wolf climbed down from the transport and hurried toward Mops. They looked each other up and down, each taking the measure of the other’s injuries. “You look like hell, sir.”
Despite everything, Mops grinned. “You smell like it.”
“Yeah, well, for future missions, I recommend against crawling through hundred-and-fifty-year-old waste lines.”
“That should go in the manual.” Mops limped closer and put a hand on Wolf’s shoulder, the one without the bandages. “However this turns out, you’ve done well.”
Wolf’s expression hardened. “Tell that to Melvil.”
The barely-repressed grief and anger told Mops everything. Her hand tightened, and she allowed herself a moment of silent mourning for the overenthusiastic librarian. “From what I saw of him, he’d say the same.”
The voice from before filled the docking bay. “All personnel must exit the ships.”
Mops turned to face the door leading into the station. “We didn’t come here to surrender, Sage. We came with a message.”
After a pause, the voice repeated, “All personnel must exit.”
Mops glanced over her shoulder and nodded. Greensleeves was the first off the shuttle, followed by the rest of the Krakau from Armstrong Space Center. They quickly slunk toward the door, dragging their injured in stretchers. Bev and Monroe were last to leave.
The transport took longer to empty its passengers. Krakau troops joined the others near the door. Cate followed them out, shouting taunts after the Krakau. “Go stand in the shame of your defeat!”
Next out were eleven human librari
ans. Mops recognized Nancy, Khatami, and the Head Librarian herself.
Eliza approached Mops. “I’m glad to see you alive.”
“More or less,” said Mops. “Are you sure about all this?”
“Not at all.” Eliza chuckled. “But it was worth it. I’ve traveled maybe three hundred kilometers from LockLand in my lifetime, Mops. Seeing the Earth from space . . . watching nightfall creep across the globe below . . . In all the books and recordings we’ve collected, there’s nothing like it.”
The inner door opened with a faint hiss. Four Krakau guards slid out, blaster-cuffs ready. Several of the Krakau from Earth tried to hurry away, only to be forced back at gunpoint.
One of the guards, a warrior with yellow-and-brown shell patterns, moved toward the humans and the Prodryan. One by one, she waved a scanner wand over each of them. Another guard did the same with the Krakau by the door.
After the scans were complete, the two Krakau guards moved into the shuttle and troop transport, presumably to search for stowaways, explosives, or whatever else Sage thought they might be hiding.
“Do you mind if I sit down while we wait?” Mops lowered herself to the floor without waiting for an answer. “Your scientists shot me a lot. It takes a toll.”
Eventually, the two Krakau emerged and returned to the door. Only now did Fleet Admiral Sage enter the bay. She was orange and brown in color, with a thick, squat build. Blue-and-white stripes on one tentacle sleeve marked her as a Fleet Admiral. Sage examined the humans and the lone Prodryan before focusing her attention on Mops. “Where is the Pufferfish?”
Mops furrowed her brow. “I’m not sure. I got disoriented during docking.” She waved a hand toward the left. “That way, I think?”
Sage spoke into her comm. “Have you finished your security sweep of the station?”
Doc did his best to pick up and translate the response. “. . . clear. No sign . . . intrusion.”
“You think this is a trick?” asked Mops. “That I’m here to distract you while my people sneak into Stepping Stone?”
Sage ignored her. “Continue searching. Keep guards on all plumbing and waste disposal lines with external access points. We know how this particular batch of humans likes to operate.” To one of the guards, she said, “Take the soldiers and Medlab Five personnel to quarantine. They’re to be kept isolated until I’ve had the chance to personally debrief them.”